It All Flows Downhill

Two stories, two different subjects, two different Federal agencies, yet both act as if “depraved indifference” is their middle name.

First the more serious. The ACLU issued this press release as the result of papers received as part of a Freedom Of Information Act request to DOD. The “beaten with a stove” line is over the top

One of the documents released to the ACLU is a list of at least four prisoner deaths that were the subject of Navy Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) investigations. The NCIS document contains new information about the deaths of some of these prisoners, including details about Farhad Mohamed, who had contusions under his eyes and the bottom of his chin, a swollen nose, cuts and large bumps on his forehead when he died in Mosul in 2004. The document also includes details about Naem Sadoon Hatab, a 52-year-old Iraqi man who was strangled to death at the Whitehorse detainment facility in Nasiriyah in June 2003; the shooting death of Hemdan El Gashame in Nasiriyah in March 2003; and the death of Manadel Jamadi during an interrogation after his head was beaten with a stove at Abu Ghraib in November 2003.

The press release leaves me with the impression that the folks behind these goings on feel that they can get away with anything. Granted, I did not socialize with policy makers and admirals during my twenty-one years in the Navy, but what these folks are today is beyond the pale.

Second story, immediate consequences not as grave, perhaps, but the attitude of the un-civil servants is that they can get away with anything and there will never be any consequenses. An Italian citizen who has visited the United States before is held in a county jail for ten day for no reason. Just some spiteful GS-7 government employee wanting to show his authority. The New York Times has it here. (My ems)

Ms. Cooper, 23, who had promised to show her boyfriend another side of her country on this visit — meaning Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon — eventually learned that he had been sent in shackles to a rural Virginia jail. And there he remained for more than 10 days, locked up without charges or legal recourse while Ms. Cooper, her parents and their well-connected neighbors tried everything to get him out.

Mr. Salerno’s case may be extreme, but it underscores the real but little-known dangers that many travelers from Europe and other first-world nations face when they arrive in the United States — problems that can startle Americans as much as their foreign visitors.

[ . . . ]

Though citizens of those nations do not need visas to enter the United States for as long as 90 days, their admission is up to the discretion of border agents. There are more than 60 grounds for finding someone inadmissible, including a hunch that the person plans to work or immigrate, or evidence of an overstay, however brief, on an earlier visit.

This is far too much power to give to a low level government bureaucrat. I willing to bet that these guys make it up as they go along. And only when this issue threatened to become an embarrassment was it resolved.

“Now an innocent European, who has never broken any laws, committed any crimes, or overstayed his visa, is being held in a county jail,” Ms. Cooper wrote in an e-mail message to The New York Times last Wednesday, prompting a reporter’s inquiries.

Less than 24 hours later, immigration officials intervened and arranged to deliver Mr. Salerno to Dulles, where last Friday he flew to Rome. Ms. Cooper, who said she was now considering moving to Italy, was by his side.

What I see in these two incidents is a lawlessness, an attitude that “I am above the law” and that my boss, with a wink and a nod said that it is okay. They remind me of Nazi Storm Troopers who lived as if the law did not apply to them.

So, what is it that flows downhill?  In this case it is the attitude that comes out of the White House.  It is a President that says he signed off on the torture.  It is a Vice President that say, “So.”  When the boss feels that he is above the law, it infects all of his employees.

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