I hope everyone understands what has been going on in at least one military detention camp in Iraq. The most extensive article I have read on this is in the New Yorker, which other articles seems to quote often. There is a very disturbing slide show with photographs of the US torture online as well. While there are many other cases in recent US history that can and have been debated, let us all come to terms with the fact that this is beyond any doubt an example of War Crimes. The US military has an internal procedure for dealing with this and has already admitted the severity of the crimes. The damage to the US reputation is already irreversible but, as in the case of all other War Crimes trials, if the offending state cannot appropriately deal with the crimes of its soldiers and sufficiently punish the soldiers involved, then I fully support submitting them to an international court. Of course, America has done everything it can to avoid subjecting its troops to the “whims” of international criminal law. It is time for the US to admit that its soldiers too, albeit a small minority, are capable of inhuman acts of cruelty and that we have no monopoly on justice.
Update:There are some good posts about this issue. See Demolish Abu Ghraib at Crooked Timber. Mark Kleiman makes some good observations. Also see the posting over at Keywords.