The NY Times reports today on the trials of U.S. troops accused of abusing and killing two Afghans:
In the chronicle of abuses that has emerged from America's fight against terror, there may be no story more jarring than that of the two young men killed at a United States military detention center in Afghanistan in December 2002.There have been numerous problems prosecuting those believed responsible for this heinous treatment. However, the defense seems to have struck upon a novel theory that's working....basically, how can troops know what the rules are when their leaders don't. So, the ineptness of Bush and Rumsfeld are actually working to the benefit of the accused:
The two Afghans were found dead within days of each other, hanging by their shackled wrists in isolation cells at the prison in Bagram, north of Kabul. An Army investigation showed they were treated harshly by interrogators, deprived of sleep for days, and struck so often in the legs by guards that a coroner compared the injuries to being run over by a bus.
Although the administration issued a general order that detainees should be treated humanely, internal military files on the case show that officers and soldiers at Bagram differed over what specific guidelines, if any, applied. That ambiguity confounded the Army's criminal investigators for months and left the prosecutors vacillating over strategy. It also gave the accused soldiers a defense that has seemed to resonate with some military judges and jurors.
"The president of the United States doesn't know what the rules are!" said Capt. Joseph Owens, a lawyer for one of the accused interrogators, Pfc. Damien M. Corsetti, who is one of two former Bagram soldiers still facing court-martial. "The secretary of defense doesn't know what the rules are. But the government expects this Pfc. to know what the rules are?"
