Untermenshen, it starts at the Top Untermenschen: A German phrase used during the Second World War to describe certain ethnicities as sub-human. This was going to be a longer post with four parts, but frankly, it is just too much and believe it or not, I do have to work for a living at a job which pays...as opposed to blogging which -- amazingly does not. Perhaps I'll add the other two parts later, or make it into a part two. I feel like I'm becoming a sick voyeur on this blog, it is, "Torture, and Sadomasocism" all day, all the time [with traffic on the nines]. But this story is perhaps the most blog-driven story yet (and my blog has NOTHING to do with this, especially compared to the uberbloggers like Josh Marshall, Atrios or Billmon). Looking at this story, I believe that the whole unseemingly, ideologically, and fucking frightening inside story of the Bush Administration is going to be exposed in all its non-glory. Bismarck is once reputed to have said, "Damn these pastries is tasty", I mean, "People will sleep better not knowing how their sausage and politics are made." Well, that is certainly true of the Bush Administration. ...unless, of course, you are a Fundy Nutjob awaitin' the rapture. This is some of the evidence we are looking at, piece it all together and it is a goddamn depressing story of an America that George W. Bush claims not to know, but which form a solid core of his supporters. Step No. 1: Ignore Standards The Third Geneva Convention, to which the United States is a signatory prohibits: (a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; (b) Taking of hostages; (c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind. The Fourth Convention, which the United States has not signed, but has voluntarily agreed to abide by, extends those same protections to detained civilians. "The foundation for the crimes at Abu Ghraib was laid more than two years ago, when Mr. Rumsfeld instituted a system of holding detainees from Afghanistan not only incommunicado, without charge, and without legal process, but without any meaningful oversight mechanism at all. Brushing off his violation of the Geneva Conventions, Mr. Rumsfeld maintained that the system was necessary to extract important intelligence." The CIA is seeking to determine whether its operatives had a role in the imprisonment of so-called ghost detainees, Iraqi prisoners who were held without names, charges or other documentation at U.S.-run detention facilities across their homeland, intelligence officials said Tuesday. A little-noticed portion of the military's classified report on the abuse of prisoners in Iraq says that a number of jails operated by the 800th Military Police Brigade "routinely held" such prisoners "without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason for their detention." In one case, the report says, U.S. military police at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad shifted six to eight undocumented prisoners "around within the facility to hide them" from a visiting delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross. "This maneuver was deceptive, contrary to Army Doctrine and in violation of international law," the report adds. Human rights groups said the practice of keeping prisoners off written lists and physically concealing them from humanitarian aid groups and independent monitors has been well known over the years in dictatorships from Guatemala to Sudan. Step 2: Make sure You Put the Right SOB's at the Top The Right SOB No. 1: The Secretary of Defense Some U.S. officials said Rumsfeld was resistant to repeated warnings from Iraq governor L. Paul Bremer -- delivered as early as last fall -- that the United States was detaining too many Iraqis for too long and in poor conditions. Bremer told Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials that if the problem persisted, the political fallout in Iraq would be serious, the officials said. ... Aides said yesterday that while Rumsfeld has known of the photographs since January, when they came to the attention of U.S. commanders in Iraq, he had not seen them, and he was not aware that CBS was about to air them until just hours before they were broadcast last week. The Right SOB No. 2: The Head of Military Intelligence Under pressure to learn about the Iraqi insurgency, intelligence personnel essentially took over Abu Ghraib's Cellblock 1A. They told guards to "soften up" (i.e., terrify) inmates so they would be easier to interrogate. And they told Karpinski--the nominal head of Iraq's prison system--not to visit the cellblock. Cellblock 1A, she told "Good Morning America," was "not run by my command." Intelligence personnel. Including, military intelligence personnel. Who is the head of Military Intelligence? Why its Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin. Name ring a bell? A Josh Marshall reminds us. He's the one who got in trouble last year for describing his battle with a Muslim Somali warlord by saying "I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol", saying President Bush was chosen by God, and generally that the war on terror is an apocalyptic struggle between Christianity and Satan. An investigation of Boykin's statement and whether this violated a policy (wtf?) continues. Questionable policy, not followed up upon, overseen by those who with disturbing views. Pretty much the Bush Administration all the way around. We have allowed them to make us into what we cannot admit ourselves to ever be... ...we have become the RISING HEGEMON.