Which Story Will Get More Coverage Today?

Pictures show Iraq's Saddam in his underwear - Yahoo! News

"A picture of Saddam Hussein in his underpants splashed across the front-page of Britain's biggest-selling daily newspaper on Friday prompted an outraged reaction from his lawyers."

NYTimes: U.S. Report: Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths

"The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
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No one has been convicted in either death.
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"The whole situation is unfair," Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo, a former Bagram interrogator who was charged with assaulting Mr. Dilawar, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators, said in a telephone interview. "It's all going to come out when everything is said and done.""

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Thank you, Alberto. Way to go, Rummy.

"Gonzales says the 'new paradigm' of the war on terrorism 'renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.'"

"According to a memo reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld agreed in December 2002 to allow for a variety of harsh interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay."

Dear Leader's war cabinet and legal advisor made it perfectly clear that this wasn't going to be your father's treatment of "enemy combatants," including throwing suspiciously innocent civilians into prisons and torturing them, too.

I'm not saying this shitty business would never have happened if not for all this creative Geneva-compliance avoidance. War is Hell, Shit Happens, and that is why it is a last resort. Not something you plan for "30 days before the US Congressional elections."

Evidence of isolated cases of prisoner abuse might be the result of a few brainless servicemen. As reports slowly leak out about what is really happening over there, it looks more and more like the cavalier attitude about prisoner treatment at the top filtered down through the Pentagon, to the generals, to the troops.