A reader writes…

I was going to say this was a good book – except that the subject matter is so disturbing that the adjective “good” doesn’t fit. So I will say it is a well-written and necessary read…though depressing. What I found “good” (there’s that word again) about it is that it gives so much more background to all that went on at Abu Ghraib (from the total f-ups at the highest level to the torture and humiliation perpetrated by stupid kids*) than I’ve seen anywhere else,. I hadn’t seen the movie so I watched it after reading the book. (and if you haven’t, do – but at my suggestion, after you read the book, because the book tells so much more of the story and makes the movie that much clearer)

Just thought I’d pass it on.

*My classification of “stupid kids” does not mean I’m absolving them of moral responsibility. It just think it’s an accurate description of many of the individuals. The movie will bear this out as you see the interviews. A few fries short of a happy meal, some of them…

I haven’t heard of either movie or book, but yeah, one of the things that irked me the most as we discovered more and more about the policies of the Bush/Cheney Administration was that, as is the custom with pols, they created the policies and then blamed the underling for carrying them out. One of the greatest and most mysterious lies of the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism is the weird notion that a man like Dick Cheney cares about anything besides Dick Cheney, when his vested interests are at stake. The notion that this cynical, jaded pol is somehow passionately interested in what conservative pro-lifers care about, or gives a rip about troops that he leaves to twist in the wind when it’s his own career at stake is amazing to me. The guy is every bit the draft dodger Bill Clinton was. That this brutal coward is now one of the revered Old Men of the GOP, with the enthusiastic endorsement of prolifers living in the delusion that he views them with anything but the bemused contempt that are the normal wages of useful stooges is incredible to me.