Marc Bowden on Abu Ghraib

In a previous entry, I referenced an essay on torture by Marc Bowden that appeared in the October edition of The Atlantic Monthly. Bowden applied some of his thinking about torture to the Abu Ghraib scandal in an article published by the Atlantic in its current issue. Bowden was unable to conclude whether the abuse was systematic, or a result of a lack of supervision. While he reiterated that circumstances can sometimes require coercive action, he argued (correctly I think) that in most of the Abu Ghraib cases such circumstances were not present. He argued for thorough investigation and punishment of the responsible parties. He also argued that the scandal has caused great harm to the American initiative in the Middle East.