There Were No Direct Orders - No Shit

Congress has begun digging into the issue of American treatment of Iraqi detainees, with a hearing today that included testimony from Major General Antonio Taguba. General Taguba was responsible for one of the first reports about what was going on at Abu Ghraib. Not surprisingly, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that there were no "direct orders" to torture Iraqi detainees. No kidding! The question of whether the abuses perpetrated by some of our soldiers were committed with the approval of superiors is much more complicated than whether there were "direct orders" or not.