Today is the 35th Anniversary of the Dismissal of the Pentagon Papers Case! Oh, to have a day in court now!

Excerpted without permission from the New York Times, May 11, 1973 as reported by Martin Arnold:

Los Angeles,

Citing what he called “improper Government conduct shielded so long from public view,” the judge in the Pentagon papers trial dismissed today all charges against Dr. Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony J. Russo Jr….

“The conduct of the Government has placed the case in such a posture that it precludes the fair, dispassionate resolution of these issues by a jury,” he said….

The end of the trial, on its 89th day, was dramatic. The courtroom was jammed, the jury box was filled with news reporters; defense workers in the Ellsberg-Russo cause, mostly young people, sat in chairs lining the courtroom wall…

Dr. Ellsberg and Mr. Russo, surrounded by their lawyers, stared intently as Judge Byrne quickly read his ruling.

The Government’s action in this case, he said, “offended a sense of justice,” and so “I have decided to declare a mistrial and grant the motion for dismissal.”

The courtroom erupted in loud cheering and clapping. The judge, barely hiding a smile, quickly strode out the door behind his bench.

Tension had been building for two days, since the sudden disclosure by the Government yesterday that telephone conversations of Dr. Ellsberg were picked up by wiretapping in late 1969 and early 1970, and that all records and logs of those conversations had disappeared from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

When this morning the Government was still unable to produce either the records or a legal authorization for the taps, it was evident that the case had ended…

“A judgment of acquittal goes to all the facts,” he said, but he added that if he ruled on that defense motion, “it would not dispose of all the issues.” That, he said, “can only be done by going to the jury.”

He did say, however, that his ruling was based not only on the wiretap disclosures, “or based solely on the break-in” of the office of Dr. Ellsberg’s psychiatrist on Sept. 3, 1971, by agents in the employ of the White House.

But Judge Byrne said that “on April 26 the Government made an extraordinary disclosure” — that of the break-in — and that was followed by disclosures that the break-in was done by a “special unit” reporting to the White House.

He said that the special unit “apparently operated with the approval of the F.B.I.” and that the C.I.A. also became involved in the prosecution of this case at the “request of the White House.”…

Dr. Ellsberg and Mr. Russo contended that they had taken the papers and copied them to give them to Congress, which, they hoped, would bring pressure to end the war in Vietnam.

So in reality they were arguing in court not only constitutional issues, but their belief that the greater good required them to break some regulations to make the papers public….

“Governmental agencies have taken an unprecedented series of actions against these defendants” he said. He cited the special White House “plumbers” unit, which “apparently operated with the approval of the F.B.I.”

“We may have been given only a glimpse of what this special unit did,” the judge said. “The latest series of actions compound a record already pervaded by instances which threatened the defendants’ rights to a fair trial.”

“It was of greatest significance,” he said, that the wire-tap occurred during the period of conspiracy.

“Continued Government investigation is no solution,” he added, “because delays tend to compromise the defendants’ rights.”…

“I think that the court’s ruling was appropriate, necessary, eloquent, justified and dispositive. The judgment was made not on the narrow issue of wiretapping, but on the totality of Government misconduct.”…

“If facts prove to be what they appear to be, the President has led a conspiracy, not only against Tony and me, but against the American public.”

And this was nothing campared to what Bush Cheney have been up to.

It sounds so… so… fringy to talk about fascism in the U.S. today. After all, Bush Cheney may have corrupted the Constitution, placed themselves above the law, etc. etc. but there haven’t been mass arrests, newspapers haven’t been closed, concentration camps haven’t (to my knowledge) been constructed, brown shirts aren’t regularly goose-stepping down the road (only occasionally), and we don’t get a big “D” for dissenter tattooed on our foreheads - not yet, anyway.

So what’s the problem?

Bush Cheney remain unchallenged and they continue their criminal behavior. The most corrupt Presidency in history still remains unchecked by the people. This Constitutional travesty is due to the abject failure of Congress to exercise its oversight powers. By hoping Bush Cheney will simply go away quietly in the fall is not an acceptable response to their many violations of the public trust, international law, and domestic law. The Democrats’ inability to successfully subpoena records and witnesses to get to the bottom of their crimes is, in large part, due to an executive that has placed itself above the law and a Congress that allows it to do so.

In short, both parties have agreed to keep us fat and dumb! Congressional Democrats say they wouldn’t want to upset the nation with a divisive impeachment inquiry. They wouldn’t want to jeopardize the hopelessly failed goal of bi-partisanship. They wouldn’t want to distract us from an important legislative agenda that has gotten nowhere. What the Democrats do not understand is that the election isn’t the solution - even if they win. They might be willing to sacrifice the Constitution for a victory in November, but nobody has told them that there is a good chance they just might lose anyway. In that case we will not only get another term of Bush Cheney policies, we won’t have a Constitution either.

Usually getting fat is fun and, really, sometimes ignorance is bliss. But with a corpo lock on the politicians and the mass media that serves up empty calories of trivia and superficialities that substitute for news and knowledge, we end up voting against our best interests and incapable of dealing with the truth. What do we get from 95% of the mass media (including PBS/NPR, my flawed favorites) that dole out pablum? The unquestioned promotion of the conventional wisdom, bought and paid for by the corpos, insures that we don’t get the real news, the serious adult stuff. Rather, we get an endless repetition of pesky little matters like who is, or is not, wearing a flag pin, how one salutes the flag, which minister is more corrupt, what sex crime has been committed by whom, and who has the weirdest laugh.

And, with all this discussion of who is electable without first having an election, we really might as well save ourselves the trouble of going to the polls anyway. In the sound bite culture the corpo media has created we never get, nor do we have the patience for, the truth in all its messy complexity. It makes bad radio and worse TV. Instead we get stirred up over school yard taunts, wild accusations, and inflamed biases.

Maybe the Internet is the answer but virtual worlds lead only to virtual reality. It’s easy to sign an online petition and it is just as easy to hit the delete key at the other end. Sure, new communities are aborning and being nurtured, and intellectual resistance to the conventional juggernaut may be fostered on the Internet, but all those plaintive calls to action only result in new petitions and maybe more frustrating meetings, no real change.

So, contemporary corpo fascism includes the two major parties that don’t need to answer for their behavior until the next election, if at all. Even then it is, at most, a trade off between tweedledee and tweedledum. And their symbiotic relationship with the corpo media guarantees that real dialog and accountability will never take place. The powers that be are clearly not the powers that should be. Since 1980, the government’s role as leveler of the playing field, societal watchdog, and facilitator of the good society has been dismantled - all in the name of privatization and getting the government “off our backs.” Both parties have been responsible for this and the net effect of this has been the biggest transfer of wealth and well-being from the poor and middle class to the corpos. The friendly face of fascism is the idea that unfettered corpo control is good for us and it is renewed in four year doses when real choice is unavailable.

There’s no need for the concentration camps because you can eliminate your opposition by simply ignoring it; there is no well-informed public with time to take its outrage to the streets. We’re treated like children and we behave like children refusing to ask the tough questions and settling for whatever we’re told. We want “change that we can believe in” but have no time to understand the details of what that means. We dismiss Nader and Mckinney because they are too serious, complex, and require us to think, to challenge some basic assumptions. They don’t make it easy for us to “get it,” so we dismiss them. Besides, they’re not electable because the media says so and the system has fooled us into thinking voting for whom you want other than for a “major” candidate is to waste your vote. Gee, I thought an election is to cast a vote for your preference. If we always vote for the lessor of two evils, we still get evil.

The two party lock on the system abetted by the mass media and funded by the corpos is great news for fascists. They don’t have to work so hard. Why worry about dissent when it is out of sight anyway? Under the guise of stolen, rigged, and limited elections all “mandating” “privatization,” the neo-conservative corpos have fully plundered the treasury to their hearts content, unafraid of getting caught and less afraid of getting convicted. because of the neutered regulatory and legal system. They got what they wanted under a legal pretense without effective Congressional or media oversight without the messiness of domestic bloodshed. And all they need to do in office to keep getting what they want is to simply ignore or repress visible dissent - all without firing a shot.

Even if we did take it to the streets, the corpo police would crush it or divert it to a harmless place as when thousands of demonstrators were amassed in Central Park during the 2004 Republican Presidential convention far from the actual gathering. If worst came to worst and a confrontation broke out, so what? Tear-gas and some casualties at world trade events haven’t significantly altered globalization or even slowed corpo interests. No big deal, just some vented and dissipated outrage. The age of passive friendly fascism has begun.

The corpos and their political enablers live behind security walls, their bubble worlds are protected. They are completely separated from the hoi polloi - protected in residential enclaves, private schools, private and privileged everything. Why worry about political campaigns when the media cleverly winnows the field of real challengers, the two-party system makes new voices impossible to be heard, and debates are closed to establishment approved candidates anyway? Then, does it matter who wins? Once you give the current two-party system a license to operate by participating in the election, you only encourage them and guarantee that no real change will occur. You’ll be back in the same trap again two or four years later.

See, under the gaze of the friendly face of fascism, it’s really simple: cast your vote in the coming election, go back to sleep. It’s an unbeatable formula. It keeps the blood pressure and false hopes way down. If you can’t sleep through it and are troubled by the unresponsiveness of the system and how the two parties have colluded to ignore Constitutional checks and balances, and no longer actually govern our society, you’ll just have to tough it out. As long as you believe a choice between the Democrats and Republicans is a solution, under the friendly face of fascism, you lose, and blame yourself. On the marginally brighter side, when the superficial and the trivial don’t fool you, they simply exploit your hopes with a quaint positive vision. Consider: if Willie Horton doesn’t get you in the night, “It’s morning in America!” Witness the young people flocking to Obama. In either case, the friendly face of fascism fools you into believing you will make a real difference and your vote counts. After the post-election honeymoon, it is back to business as usual. Remember the Democrats’ first 100 days? Remember anything after that except their approval of Bush Cheney war budgets?

But isn’t it just shabby politics, not fascism?

The definition of fascism, according to my Dictionary, is:

“Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.”

In our friendly fascism, we simply substitute “corporate interest” for “ethnic group” but add a glob of racism for good measure just to be sure we  deflect people’s rage toward one another and not the corpos and those who have destroyed the government from within. In friendly fascism the corpos don’t look so bad, right? We all know things go better with Coke, that GE brings good things to life, that State Farm is like a good neighbor, and that McDonald’s is just Ronald McDonald reminding us that we deserve a break today. Frankly, I’d rather have it my way.

Sure you say, but that’s just life. The world is too complex, the economic forces too huge. Why all the fuss, life’s not so bad? Well, consider this: if, as we now understand things, the laws in this country are not made for the common good (with a few exceptions, maybe traffic laws, for example), but instead to protect the interests of the large corpos and special interests of which we, the people, rarely seem to be included, then all we can look forward to is a declining quality of life. All the money gets sucked up by the corpos without leaving anything for the common good. I can hear you say, but don’t we all have a shot at getting ours, too?

Unfortunately, no. We’re all not in the same boat anymore. Now there are two boats, a small one for the corpos and a bigger one for everyone else, but our boat is taking on water and a hell of a long way from the dock. While taxes are lowered and debt spirals out of control, what’s left to do the work of nation building at home? Almost nothing, look around you.

With friendly fascism now dominating the political landscape and an obsessive compulsive criminality in Washington, we are hanging our hopes on Obama. And, for the first time since John F. Kennedy, young people are turning out in significant numbers and optimism is in the air. I hope it is well founded and not just because they have been fooled. Still, it will take much more than an Obama victory to restore our Constitutional system and once again be able to trust that our government is working for the common good.

The Bangor 6 were acquitted today. The jury unanimously found the defendants not guilty of criminal trespassing.

The face of “Thought” by Larkin O. Meade at the Bangor Public Library

Senator Collins should take heed. Constituents have a right to meet with their Congressional delegation. The apparent strategy of simply ignoring dissenters and other voices trying to be heard inside the political process may be convenient to those in power but that is not what they were elected to do. Failure to be responsive to all citizens will only lead to further escalating the divisiveness that is swallowing up civil discourse in this country. Hooray for the jury, hooray for the Bangor 6, and hooray for all 12 who originally demanded to be heard.

In early March, 2007, a dozen Mainers seeking to speak with US Senator Susan Collins were arrested for “criminal trespassing” at her office. Yesterday, almost 14 months later, a jury trial for six of the 12 went forward in Penobscot Bay Superior Court. Each of the six explained why they refused to leave the Senator’s office. Apparently, they were motivated by extreme frustration with their fruitless half-decade long attempt to discuss their anti-war message with her.

Senator Collins couldn’t care less.

Doug Rawlings, Dud Hendrick, Jon Kreps, Henry Braun, Rob Shetterly and Jim Freeman, among others, were arrested on March 7, 2007. By refusing to meet with them, Collins didn’t hear their arguments for ending the Iraq war in which 23 (now 24) Mainers died. Of course their message wasn’t one Collins wanted to hear. As they explained in court, a war of aggression is a violation of international law - an act Collins heartily supported. Apparently she is a Senator for only those people she agrees with.

From Left: The Courtroom, SRO; Doug Rawlings; Dud Hendrick; Henry Braun

From Left: Jimmy Freeman; Rev. Gerald Oleson; Global Network’s Mary Beth Sullivan; and, Independent Senatorial Candidate Laurie Dobson.

Today, as prisoners of conscience, they have courageously spoken their truth to power and have shown that the rule of law has been completely neglected where it counts the most - in enforcing international and domestic laws about waging an illegal war, and willfully torturing prisoners who have been denied all rights.

A midday rally was held at the Bangor Library’s Lecture Hall on Tuesday. Speakers on behalf of those on trial, included most of the defendants themselves; one, Henry Braun, a professor, recited a poem he wrote during the Vietnam War that is apropos today. It ends “…in these days of almost fatal shadow.”

Military Families Against the War sent a letter of support, Harold Burbank a native son and a Green Candidate for Congress in Connecticut brought a message from the Ralph Nader’s Campaign, Tom LeDue, the Democratic Senatorial Primary Opponent to Tom Allen and Mary Beth Sullivan of Global Network, also spoke.

The event was hosted by Laurie Dobson, Independent Candidate for the U.S. Senate in conjunction with Reverend Gerald Oleson, a local anti-war activist.

The case is expected to close arguments today.

Linda Daves, the Chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, officially opened the Swift Boat season. Last week she launched the first official slanderous TV attack against the Democrats, not about any position they’ve taken, but solely based on the charge of guilt by association twice removed.

You see, the convenience of a widely circulated videotape sound bite of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s paster, roundly (and rightly in this case) criticizing America is shown as “proof” that Obama is unpatriotic, too radical for this country, and somehow responsible for Wright’s sermons; at least, they say, he should have done something about them. Given this completely illogical slanderous claim based on remarks taken out of context (as usual), Obama is unacceptable, not just on the usual partisan grounds, but because his (in)actions make him reprehensible and unpatriotic. Guilt by association.

That’s bad enough and totally irresponsible. Even McCain asked that the ad be withdrawn because of its incendiary message. But the NC State Republican Chair defied that request from her party’s standard-bearer and went one step further - she then accused the Democratic senatorial and gubernatorial candidates of being no better than the man they endorsed - Barack Obama. If you support Obama, you support Wright. So, why didn’t you do something? You’re too radical for North Carolina. Hence, guilt by association twice removed.

It isn’t that sermons and associations don’t matter to us as individuals. We are filled with a need for appropriate relationships and, rightly or wrongly, judge our friends and others accordingly - usually without sufficient information. Entering into our judgment of others is a sizable dollop of misinformation, partial information and, mostly, a whole lot of ignorance, fear, and superstition. That’s unfortunately a truism about life in our complex world and about being at this stage of human evolution.

Our judgmental nature can’t be avoided, not even by earning a dozen academic degrees. But, ignorance is something to be overcome not to be proud of. And ignorance should not be elevated to national prominence because of the media’s penchant for sensationalism and projecting its and others’ ignorance and biases onto the rest of us. That dignifies the worst among us, not the best.

If we are to elevate our best to national prominence and demonstrate our loftier aspirations we must reject mindless, hair-trigger reactions to events taken out of context. It may be easier to focus on trivia and the superficial but all that does is toy with and titillate our more primitive instincts. That gets our attention but that behavior is ultimately self-destructive. At a national level it demeans us, brings more discord and divisiveness to the world, and results in perpetual conflict.

It is time people like Daves, who hypocritically proclaims her service in a “Compassion Across America” program be rejected for promoting hatred and her willful disregard for the meaning of what others say. Rather than give credence to Swift Boat style politics that drives us further into the political gutter, we must insist that both parties campaign on their beliefs, not their ability to smear others.
See for yourself: Bill Moyers’ Journal: An Interview with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Click here.

OK, tough question for today: You are an ABC news person, what would you do? On Friday the President announces that he was aware of the National Security Council meetings in the White House, why they were being held, and the outcome which was to consent to the the use torture by United States of America.

Then, on Monday, you  moderate the debate between Senators Obama and Clinton. Now let’s see, what shall we talk about? Obama’s use of the word “bitter” or, how about his not wearing a “flag” pin. Hmmm.

I believe at that moment the networks, at least ABC, finally exposed their unsuitability to hold the public trust to moderate the so-called debates. Not only did they trivialize that moment in Presidential history, they completely ignored one of the most definitive. When President Bush admitted knowing the substance, purpose, and outcome of the NSC meetings and what was decided there inside the White House, he also became, again, the first President to openly admit to and advocate the use of torture in violation of both domestic and international law. The smoking gun was fired at least twice.

So, ABC newsmen were face to face with history and they completely ignored it. Long live the Republic.

Boy scout, civil air patrol, political science major, Congressional intern, HEW National Fellow, Air Force Vet, Social Studies and American History teacher - a career path born out of love and respect for what we, as a nation, could become.

What you learn when you chose such a path is to revere the flag, never let it touch the ground, understand it as a representation of every ideal we fought for, but more importantly, to see it not as a representation of war but of the nation, our nation, the first in history intentionally created as a republic “with liberty and justice for all.

To look upon the flag waving on July 4th, or to see it flying high outside a school, or atop a town hall, is to see a commitment, a dedication worthy of dying for, because of an idea that people living here were more than citizens but sovereigns, entitled to express the inalienable God-given rights that we promised to secure for one another.

To see the flag was synonymous to seeing the bill of rights proclaiming that our government would assure us the protection of the laws. No, it was more. It was seeing our guarantee that due process, freedom of expression, fair elections, respect for the system of checks and balances, and that we would be assured that our President would be the exemplar-in-chief of that heritage. Sadly that is not the case.

Tonight, after watching In the Valley of Elah, a reference to the place where David and Goliath fought, my spouse and I went to the flag flying at our front door and respectfully switched it to fly upside down as a sign that the United States is in a period of extreme distress. Never have our principles been so endangered, never has an American President so thoroughly and callously disregarded our heritage and desecrated the meaning of our flag so wantonly. Never have the lives of so many of our proud, courageous and gallant young men and women been squandered in the the wrong war for the wrong reasons.

It was a clear night. When we took the flag from its stand and untied it, turned it over and retied it, I felt a distinct shift like here we go again putting ourselves out there, taking a stand, letting the world know how distressed we are in the way this country is so willing to tolerate the evil flowing out of the White House. But I wonder why I should feel so estranged and why thoughts of upsetting the peace enter my mind when the President of the United States, for the first time in our history, and in defiance of international and domestic law, says nonchalantly that he knew of the National Security Council meetings being held in the White House discussing torture techniques and that he approved of the outcome. He should be ashamed. It is he that should feel distressed.

Our flag will remain flying upside down until he leaves office and we have a restoration of our Constitutional rights. I encourage you to do the same.

Cheney to Americans: So?

Uncle Sam to Cheney: Bite Me.

Friday in Brattleboro is impeachment demo-day. Now, as we emerge from a long snowy winter, short sleeves replace parkas and sunshine remains high and long in the sky. Today was an exciting occasion with the addition of visitors from the pioneer valley and the Berkshires. In a remarkable testament to solidarity, a group from Pittsfield drove all the way up to Brattleboro to join us on the march through town urging an end to the war, the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, and a return to sanity in national politics.

Before the parade, the visitors stopped at the high school in an incredible gesture to thank the 200 students for their walkout last fall in opposition to the war. This was simply unheard of. The Berkshire County Peace and Justice coalition took this magnanimous step to tell the students that their voices were heard and their action appreciated way beyond campus.

Then in joining the march today they thanked the town for passing the measure calling for the indictment of Bush and Cheney last month. That was simply amazing.

Here are some of the images of the march today in the balmy climes of Vermont’s southland.

You just gotta love this place!

Imagine you were Lynndie England assigned to cell block 1A at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Would you have prepared for your assignment by devising a catalog of tortures to impose on the prisoners under your supervision?

You might recall that England was the first of seven U.S. Army prison guards to be sentenced for heinous prisoner abuse. You might also have seen a picture of her leading a naked prisoner around on a leash. And, you just might have asked yourself, “What in the world was she thinking?”

Philip Zimbardo’s The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil, gives us insight into the question of why the service men and women assigned to Abu Ghraib committed such horrific acts. He’s not talking about the Hitlers, Idi Amins and Pol Pots. He’s talking about Lynddie England, you, and me.

Most people believe that evil is simply an expression of evil people; that the Devil waits for the right moment to come out from hiding. That would be a convenient explanation of the torturers at Abu Ghraib. Accordingly you might believe that seven rotten apples just happened to be assigned to cellblock 1A and found a mutually comfortable environment to express their evil nature. Not so. Though the seven perpetrators have rightly been found responsible for their actions, the explanation of how these events came to pass doesn’t end there. Last week we learned the Devil was masquerading as Bush and Cheney. It was their planning and their orders that resulted in Lynddie England being asked to degrade the prisoners and being told she did a good job by the intelligence officers who interrogated the prisoners after she had her fun.

According to Zimbardo, it could just as easily been you or me holding prisoners on a leash or piling them into a naked human pyramid because circumstances, systemic influences, escalating deterioration of positive group norms, institutional policy ambiguity, and personal inaction to intervene combined to create a perfect storm of moral degradation at Abu Ghraib. According to Zimbardo, it was a highly visible example of The Lucifer Effect.

In the case of Abu Ghraib, there was a long festering environment of increasingly degrading conditions for both prisoner and guard. With constant bombardment from insurgents, non-existent sanitation facilities, unsatisfying packaged food, sleep deprivation; the guards living in the vicinity of their prisoners also shared similarly degrading conditions. The stress, anger, and resentment of the guards boiled over into the unconscionable mistreatment of their charges.

Making matters worse, the Bush administration sent inconsistent messages regarding what did or did not constitute torture versus acceptable interrogation techniques. It deliberately obfuscated the rules and behavioral boundaries in the treatment of prisoners to allow what the human rights community and Geneva Conventions call torture. In addition, there was little direct oversight of the prison; civilian contract interrogators insisted that the military police “prepare” the prisoners; and there was inadequate training for the guards. Therefore no explicit expectations of high moral treatment of prisoners were expressed or enforced.

Zimbardo explains how all of these factors, and more, created a context for abuse and set the stage to bring out the worst in human nature.

Without too much of a stretch, The Lucifer Effect can help us understand how 80-year old men get arrested for wearing an anti-war t-shirt and why every two-bit security guard acts like John Wayne enforcing the litter laws.

Living in an era of fear, and hyper vigilance about terrorist threats, (one among a catalog of fears and dangers, real and exaggerated, that we are bombarded with daily), it seems perfectly natural to mimic the President and his top administrators in their habit of shooting first and asking questions later. This is only one aspect of the context that makes abuse possible, however. Demonizing political discussants leads to fear and intolerance of those we disagree with. Combined with a set of norms among activists (draw attention to yourself, for example, by wearing a t-shirt with a political statement), and among police (don’t allow any deviation from the pursuit of situational control, for example) set the stage for confrontation. As the situation plays out, each participant conforms to his or her role. Activists must attract the police to get the confrontation they seek. Police escalate their use of their tools until they control the situation. And the press records the action closer to page one depending on the size of the confrontation; little confrontation, little news worthiness.

Intervening to alter the escalation is possible, but it requires security personnel practiced in seeing the bigger picture or an external party injecting a different perspective.

One such person at Abu Ghraib, was SPC Joseph M. Darby who saw the “trophy” photos taken by the perpetrators, realized the horror and turned in the evidence to the authorities. This was no small act of whistleblowing. Because he intervened, Darby was immediately characterized as a threat, not a team player, an enemy, a rat. Once his name was “outed” by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, property in his hometown was destroyed and he received death threats.

Regardless of your politics, if you want a deeper understanding of the reasons normal, everyday folk might commit behaviors they would otherwise not expect themselves to commit, read The Lucifer Effect. It will shock you. First, because you will see how easy it is to become enveloped in the pressures to conform; and, second, because you will realize that while seven Military Police have been prosecuted, the entire chain of command responsible for the culture and expectations of abuse, up to and including President Bush, will escape punishment.

The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip Zimbardo, (New York: Random House, 2007, 551 pps. $27.95)