TIMES LIKE THESE: Your bad-news roundup.

NEW ABUSE CHARGES (Time magazine): Could the abuse of prisoners in Iraq have gone beyond the beatings and sexual humiliation already alleged? Unreleased, classified parts of the report on prison abuse from Major General Anthony Taguba, which were read to TIME, contain indications of mistreatment of female prisoners. In a Feb. 21 statement to Taguba, Lieut. Colonel Steven L. Jordan, former head of the Abu Ghraib interrogation center, said he had received reports “that there were members of the MI [Military Intelligence] community that had come over and done a late-night interrogation of two female detainees” last October. According to a statement by Jordan’s boss, Colonel Thomas Pappas, three interrogators were later cited for violations of military law in their handling of the two females, ages 17 and 18. Senate Armed Services Committee investigators are probing whether the two women were sexually abused. The Pentagon declined to comment.

more

related: TORTURING THE LAW: “The Justice Department memo assured the Bush administration of three things: First, that interrogators could cause a lot of pain without crossing the line to torture. Second, that even though the United States criminalizes torture and has signed a treaty outlawing it, interrogators could torture prisoners as long as the president authorized it. Third, that even if those interrogators were later prosecuted for engaging in torture, there were legal defenses they could use to avoid accountability.

Bybee’s conclusions rest upon three stunning legal contortions, requiring no less than an entirely new definition of torture, a distortion of fundamental constitutional law and a new approach to the application of international law.”

more (in the Washington Post, probably via How Appealing)

FAREED ZAKARIA ON WHAT’S GOING ON INSIDE SAUDI ARABIA (in Newsweek, via The Corner)–lots of fascinating stuff there.

SYRIAN JAILED FOR INTERNET USAGE (from the BBC, possibly via The Corner or maybe Hit & Run)

NEWS FROM VIETNAM: “A priest sentenced to 15 years in prison for speaking out about anti-Christian persecution received a sentence reduction for ‘good conduct,’ but some observers fear he is being drugged.” (from Zenit, via Mark Shea)