Terry McMahon's Awesome Blog

From the Washington Post:

Two soldiers and an officer with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division have told a human rights organization of systemic detainee abuse and human rights violations at U.S. bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, recounting beatings, forced physical exertion and psychological torture of prisoners, the group said.
...
"Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid," an unidentified sergeant who worked at the base from August 2003 to April 2004 told Human Rights Watch. "This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did that for amusement."
...
"They were directed to get intel from them so we had to set the conditions by banging on their cages, crashing them into the cages, kicking them, kicking dirt, yelling," the soldier was quoted as saying. Later he described how he and others beat the detainees. "But you gotta understand, this was the norm. Everyone would just sweep it under the rug."

Look, I don't want to minimize the seriousness of the subject here. I hope, somehow, American POWs don't become victims of "fraternity hazing" like this. Hopefully al-Qaeda's media monitors slept late today.

But how are we still surprised? Why is it going to be news every time it turns out the administration has fudged scientific data that contradicts their paleoconservativism, or underfunded some safety precaution that only might save thousands of lives, or treated enemy prisoners in a way we thought only other countries did? This is simply how our government operates, and it's what we've got for the next three years. At least.

So thanks to our friends in Ohio and Florida for correctly prioritizing; now we don't have to worry about whether John Kerry was actually in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 35 years ago. Go team!