Dogging

Just floating in is news from the AP that a military jury at Fort Meade, Maryland, has found Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith guilty on six of thirteen counts of using his dog to traumatize risoners at Abu Ghraib, even to the point of making them defecate on themselves. His dog, a black Belgian shepherd, has presumably been reassigned and retrained--"presumably" is in this instance laced with irony. Smith was, AP reports, convicted on "two counts of maltreatment of three detainees, one count of conspiring to make a contest of making detainees soil themselves, dereliction of duty, assault and an indecent act." Nothing is said of torture. With the first Army dog handler convicted last July and another Army dog handler scheduled for trial in May, it is worth remembering that three Navy dog handlers refused to join in the prisoner abuse, refused to slime themselves and their dogs, refused to do something they knew to be wrong. We need more people like them, for judging from today's press conference I would have to say that the Bushbucker-in-Chief has slipped his tether, and there's no telling where he will crash and who he will injure or maim.