We should also be careful not to lump all the Abu Ghraib conduct together; some was criminal, but not everything that happened there was an "atrocity."

Some of it was definitely unacceptable (e.g., sexual abuse). But some of it was not and was more akin to a frat prank (e.g., putting pink underwear on a guy's head). Still other conduct is unclear from the photographs (e.g., there was a picture of a prisoner surrounded by soldiers and a couple dogs, hard to tell what the dogs were doing in the pictures, standing guard or actually threatening).

Gonzalez says in this article (and in his previous memos to the President, I believe) that the Geneva convention might not apply to terrorists we catch, and we can get away with torturing them. What he doesn't say is that there are several other sources, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice, federal law, and international treaties the US has signed & ratified that explicitly forbid torture. Of anyone. Under any circumstances.

---