Apropos of nothing, I was purposefully poking around in some papers looking for a thing I'd done 10 years ago and was annoyed that it was missing.
So I shuffled and sifted and finally located the bill I'd defaced out of pure frustration, anger and shame after seeing the torture images from Abu Ghraib, which were published ca May 2004. I've been looking around for the bill since May 2014, the 10th Anniversary, more or less, of seeing the iconic image of the Iraqi Christ. It burned a hole in my vision until I took it out on the bill. The top of the sekrit pyramid reminded me of his hood.
I used a No. 11 Exacto blade for the scratch art and ballpoint ink, and I did it in late 2004-early 2005. I hope you don't mind me sharing it here. I successfully scanned it myself. 0_o
I had to google exactly when Abu Ghraib was exposed and ran across this war-profiteer-passes-the-buck article...highlights below the Mehndi Filigree.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A defense contractor that supplied interrogators to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq argued Friday that it can't be sued for abuses that occurred there because its employees were working in tandem with military personnel whose judgment about conducting wartime operations shouldn't be questioned by a federal judge.My bold.Four former inmates at Abu Ghraib sued a subsidiary of Arlington-based CACI International Inc. back in 2008, saying CACI employees conspired to torture them to soften them up for interrogations. ...
CACI's lawyer argued Friday that the company can invoke that defense ["political questions doctrine," which says judges should not preside over intractable policy issues that are questions of politics, rather than questions of law] on behalf of its civilian contractors because they were working under the direct supervision of the military.
Lawyer John O'Connor said bringing the case to trial would "require the court to second guess sensitive military judgments."
The article continues as the army personnel blame the CACI employees hired to "advise" them. The attorney for the original four Iraqi men suing CACI said that CACI interrogators filled a vacuum in military leadership and took it upon themselves to order MPs on duty how to do the dirty lowdown things shown in those shameful images.
CACI, meanwhile, says the army was in charge and had a choice to not comply, since what CACI "ordered" was disallowed by the UCC. Regardless, everyone seemed to enjoy it except the Iraqi victims. Thus my, your, our horror.
Ten-and-one-half years later, these Iraqi men our country tortured under George W Cheney have not and likely will not ever receive justice. Finding my defaced bill reminded me of it.