"The Fotomat Defense"

In a classic "I wish I'd written that" piece in Salon, Arianna Huffington nails it.

"It is the photographs that give one the vivid realization of what actually took place," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. "Words don't do it."

"...Why not?" she wonders. "Is the country being run by a bunch of preschoolers who can't process all those big words and will only sit still for a colorful picture book?"

As I've mentioned elsewhere, my encounters with the Abu Ghraib photos have mostly been a matter of happenstance. I haven't gone looking for them, or posted a gallery of them (apologies to all those whose searches have sent them to Upper Left because I've used the words 'Abu Ghraib' and 'pictures' in the same sentence a few times). I don't need them to know what's happened is wrong. Unlike the Secretary of Defense, I've been to war. Grisly images don't fascinate me.

In fact, I agree with Arianna. The images may be important, especially as trial evidence, but they shouldn't be needed.

"According to Taguba, U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib were guilty of: "Positioning a naked detainee on a box ... with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes and penis to simulate electric torture"; "Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees"; "Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair"; "Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick."

"Close your eyes. Now picture what you just read. Still need to see photos before you hit the roof? I didn't think so."

That's also what blows big holes in the defense offered by some of the accused guards. One of their defense attorneys was on CNN earlier today, referring to their actions as being responses to "apparently legal orders." No order to perform torture can be "apparently legal," and the words alone are abundant evidence of torture.

Rummy has to go. Really. Sign the petition.