Thank you Captain Fishback

A soldier, patriot and Christian balks at the White House-ordered torture of detainees.

Capt. Ian Fishback, a West Point graduate, contacted the Senate panel with the charges within the last 10 days, saying he was frustrated that his superior officers had failed to respond, said committee aides.

In recent letters to several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Fishback said he witnessed detainees being stripped, deprived of sleep, exposed to the elements and "forced into uncomfortable positions for prolonged periods of time for the express purpose of coercing them into revealing information other than name, rank and service number."

New York-based Human Rights Watch said Friday that one of the sergeants told the group, "We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day." The sergeant reportedly described the mistreatment at a base near Fallouja as "just like" Abu Ghraib, saying, "We did that for amusement."

One day a sergeant shows up and tells a PUC [person under control] to grab a pole," Human Rights Watch said one of the sergeants recounted. "He told him to bend over and broke the guy's leg with a mini Louisville Slugger, a metal bat."

In their statements, the three said that collectively they witnessed soldiers delivering blows and kicks to prisoners' faces, chests, abdomens and extremities, pouring chemical substances on skin and eyes, and forcing detainees into stress positions such as holding heavy water jugs with outstretched arms

He told the committee that, over the last 17 months, he first wrote a memo to his company commander, saying the military was violating the Geneva Convention. He said he was told to consider the honor of his unit, and the commander said "he would not stand up for me if I took my issues higher," one of Fishback's letters said.

Fishback said he "immediately took my concerns to my battalion commander," who told him this was a "gray area." He spoke with Army lawyers, he said, and was told the same, that things like "stripping prisoners and chaining them to the floor can be in accordance with the Geneva Convention."

Still frustrated, he called his congressman. Then early this month, he approached the Senate panel, which had held hearings on events at Abu Ghraib.

Fishback said he was especially bothered when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the committee last year, right after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, that the military was obeying the rules of the Geneva Convention.

"I was immediately concerned that the Army was taking part in a lie to the Congress, which would have been a clear violation of the Constitution," he said.

"Interrogation techniques that violated the Geneva Convention found their way into Army systems. The problem was systemic, and it was widespread."

Remember what the right wing did to Dick Durbin when he said we needed to look into the abuse of detainees? It's disgraceful.