...The readers of this blog are doubtless familiar with Janice Karpinski; she was the commander of the Reserve brigade that, among other things was responsible for Abu Ghraib back when Lynndie English had her little birthday party.

I've not commented deeply on the whole Abu Ghraib /torture issue because there's been a lot more smoke than light everywhere I looked, and picking between the competing plausible narratives (I'm skipping the "U.S. military are bloodthirsty murders and torturers" one) require more knowledge than I have. I'm opposed to torture, for a variety of reasons, including lack of proof that it works, and think that the only moral position is one that requires the torturer to run the legal risk and moral hazard. But I'll also suggest that there are a lot of aggressive techniques - most of what is done to our own troops in SERE training - that I would hesitate to classify as torture...