Drip, Drip, Drip

The truth, slowed every step of the way by BushCo., is slowly making itself known about so many different aspects of their misadministration, most especially the quagmire in Iraq. A few - too few - journalists are actually doing their jobs to get the truth out. Take this very sad story about how decisions about how we treat prisoners can affect our own soldiers:

The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. On Tuesday, we explored the case of Kenny Stanton, Jr., murdered last month by our allies, the Iraqi police, though the military didn’t make that known at the time. Now we learn that one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to interrogation techniques used on prisoners.

She was Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Az., native serving with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal-Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a “non-hostile weapons discharge.”

Note below a journalist actually doing the hard work of tracking down facts and not just repeating the latest talking points:

But in this case, a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston decided to probe deeper and filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the government. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Here’s what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston now works, reported yesterday:

“Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed….”

We could use more reporters willing to do the hard work to get real answers.

The bigger issue remains BushCo. working desperately to hide the real results of their war based on lies. To keep up a lie you have to tell more lies; eventually you forget what lies you told to whom. Eventually lies come back around to bite you on the ass. This administration deserves every bite on the ass it's getting.