monday reads

Tim Lasseter: U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases

The eight-month McClatchy investigation found a pattern of abuse that continued for years. The abuse of detainees at Bagram has been reported by U.S. media organizations, in particular The New York Times, which broke several developments in the story. But the extent of the mistreatment, and that it eclipsed the alleged abuse at Guantanamo, hasn't previously been revealed.

Guards said they routinely beat their prisoners to retaliate for al Qaida's 9-11 attacks, unaware that the vast majority of the detainees had little or no connection to al Qaida.

Former detainees at Bagram and Kandahar said they were beaten regularly. Of the 41 former Bagram detainees whom McClatchy interviewed, 28 said that guards or interrogators had assaulted them. Only eight of those men said they were beaten at Guantanamo Bay.

Because President Bush loosened or eliminated the rules governing the treatment of so-called enemy combatants, however, few U.S. troops have been disciplined under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and no serious punishments have been administered, even in the cases of two detainees who died after American guards beat them.

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More than a million people have been forced to flee their homes in southern China by major flooding that has cost 57 lives and added to the misery of last month's earthquake.


Scott Horton: The U.S. Attorneys Scandal Enters the Criminal Prosecutions Phase


Sen. John McCain on his plan to capture Osama bin Laden.


ICE Cold to Kids


Lindsay Beyerstein interviews Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family.


Sleazy RIAA shops for a new judge.