Friday, February 09, 2007

A mental health moment

Not to soothe your mental health, but to consider the state of this man, one of the US interrogators in Iraq.
The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.
On the same day that we learn of the machinations of the aptly described "fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth" as he cooked the intelligence on Iraq to insure that war would result, we also learn more of the price of that recipe and that war. Another brick in the wall of lies and deceit that has turned Iraq into the biggest human tragedy and Republican failure this country has ever been a party to.

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