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Saturday, January 07, 2006

Just playing politics

From the NY Times:
"They certainly had a case to investigate - two guys died," Captain Beiring said yesterday in an interview. "And, obviously, some soldiers did some stuff wrong and needed to be punished. But I think it got blown out of proportion. At some point, they were just playing politics."
So what was the case they, Army prosecutors, had to investigate?
The Army has dropped its case against the only officer to face criminal charges in connection with the beating deaths of two prisoners held by the United States in Afghanistan, military officials said yesterday.

The officer, Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, led a reservist military police company that was guarding the main American detention center in Afghanistan when the two men were killed within days of each other in December 2002. The prisoners died after guards kneed them repeatedly in the legs while each was shackled to the ceiling of his cell.

Captain Beiring, 39, had been charged with lying to investigators and being derelict in his duties, in part by neglecting after the first death to order his soldiers to stop chaining up prisoners by the arms at the behest of military interrogators who wanted to deprive them of sleep before questioning.
He was in charge of a unit which beat two prisoners to death. But prosecuting him was just "playing politics."

Reason number 3,456,832 why they hate us.