A Name You Should (Or Will Soon) Know

Captain Ian Fishback.

When you have lots of people asking the same question, eventually there comes a single person who asks who becomes the official "Asker of The Question".

Capt. Fishback wanted to know, quite simply, "what are the rules for interrogation of detainees?" He asked. A lot. He wrote letters to everybody from his instructors at West Point, to interrogators at Guantanemo, to U.S. Senators... Dozens of people. Nobody was able to give him an answer.

Finally, he wrote to Senator John McCain, and a copy of that letter made it into the Washington Post. The Washington Post wrote their own opinion piece regarding the letter.

It's an amazing thing that in this day and age, in our enlightened society, an Army Captain cannot find a supportive ear for his outrage at the abuse of prisoners in his charge; that he cannot get direction from a single person in charge as to what is illegal / inhumane / and improper in dealing with people who are in the Army's custody.

It is an oft overlooked shame that America has visited upon itself: The abuse of prisoners detained around the world by our armed forces... Abuses of freedom and dignity committed in the name of freedom and dignity. Nobody in a command position has been made responsible for the injuries, the deaths, the abuses, the humiliations. Why? Because as long as there is no policy in place regarding a detainee's treatment, nobody is to blame except for those people directly on the scene who clearly have crossed some nonexistent line... like twisted lil' Lynndie England.

Capt. Fishback is a name you will come to know, because he pointed out the dishonor and unChristian behavior of our interrogation techniques, and the hyprocrisy and irresponsibility that comes from not having any clearcut standards regarding (and prohibiting) their use.

Let us hope that Capt. Fishback will be seen by the Army as a galvanizing force to correct its internal moral compass, and not as some dangerous element, some disruptive force that needs to be dealt with.