The sound you hear is my jaw dropping

(This picture shows then Gen. Janis Karpinski (left) during Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfield's visit to Abu Ghraib Prison. Karpinski was the head of all Iraqi military prisons, though Abu Ghraib had been bemoved from her control by this time.)
(From Democracy Now!)

COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Well, we have to start at the very top, and the original memorandum directing interrogation -- harsher interrogation techniques and the departure from the Geneva Conventions starts at -- Alberto Gonzales was one of the people who made the recommendations to the President. I don't know if he talked about each detail of that departure or what that may imply, but I do know that the Secretary of Defense signed a very lengthy memorandum authorizing harsher techniques to be used in Afghanistan and specifically at Guantanamo Bay. This was the global war on terrorism. . . .

Go read this entire interview, or download the podcast at iTunes (it's free.)

Whenever I think I have become jaded to this administration's lies and tactics, I am hit by something that just goes further than I believe they are capable. This is about our leaders giving the go ahead to commit war crimes. Unbelievable!!!!

And the saddest, sickest thing is that they have penalized only the people who were carrying out their explict instructions to use torture, while avoiding any responsibility themselves. This is the "values" administration, right?

KARPINSKI: I would say that these soldiers, they were certainly assigned to a subordinate unit, and they are my responsibility, ultimately, yes. I think that they have been fair -- unfairly and unjustly held accountable for all of this, as if they designed these techniques, as if Lynndie England deployed with a dog collar and a dog leash. And that's unfair, and that's a tragedy in all of this. Should they be punished for doing what they did, for agreeing to do what they did? Absolutely, but singled out? No.

Maybe someone should put a leash on Rumsfield or Gonzales? Give them a taste of their own medicine? I feel ashamed of the things these people are doing in our names.