Rummy on Torture: "Get-R-Done!"

It's no surprise that Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, approved the inhuman torture techniques employed by U.S. Intelligence operatives at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. For any American who loves this country and the human rights it has represented for more than two hundred years, our dark hours under the Bush regime have brought a litany of such disheartening shocks to the conscience – torture, spying without warrant, the end of habeas corpus, etc. What is a surprise is that Rumsfeld was willing to put pen to paper to approve methods that prima facie violate the Geneva Convention. Today, Reuters reports Rummy OK'd prisoner treatment which broke the law and ignored most basic human morality.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished"," she told Saturday's El Pais.

It's really saddening that we must turn to Germany to prosecute Rumsfeld for war crimes. Is there no forum in the United States where Rummy can be charged with breaking the laws of the land? In Gen. Karpinski, we have a witness, in the Abu Ghraib photos, we have documentary evidence of war crimes. Now, it appears there is also a smoking gun memo, complete with Rummy’s John Hancock and “Get-R-Done” notation, which should convince any jury or deliberative body (Yo Democrats!) that Bush’s SecDef should rot in the brig.

According to Karpinski, who ran Abu Ghraib...

"The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably ... Rumsfeld authorized these specific techniques."

The Geneva Convention says prisoners of war should suffer "no physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion" to secure information.

"Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind," the document states.

If we Americans cannot deal with our own war criminal, but must look to Germany for justice, then all is lost. What jurisdiction in the United States, what court, what laws, are most appropriate to bring war criminal Rumsfeld to justice? This is an American problem and it requires an American solution.