Hell, if we could harness all the free-floating idiocy out there as an energy source, the future would be golden. This is unbelievable:
Sgt. Santos Cardona, 32, a military policeman from Fullerton, Calif., served in 2003 and 2004 at Abu Ghraib as a military dog handler. After pictures of Cardona using the animal to threaten Iraqis were made public, he was convicted in May of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault, the equivalent of a felony in the U.S. civilian justice system. The prosecution demanded prison time, but a military judge instead imposed a fine and reduction in rank. Though Cardona was not put behind bars, he was also required to serve 90 days of hard labor at Ft. Bragg, N.C.
Before Cardona boarded a plane at Pope Air Force Base this week for the long flight to his unit’s Kuwait staging area, he told close friends and family that he dreaded returning to Iraq. One family member described him as “depressed,” though stoic about his fate. According to a close friend with whom Cardona spoke just before his departure, the soldier is fearful that he remains a marked man, forever linked to the horrors of Abu Ghraib — he appears in at least one al-Qaeda propaganda video depicting the abuse — and that he and comrades serving with him in Iraq could become targets for terrorists. To make matters worse, his 23rd MP Company has been selected to train Iraqi police, which have been the target of frequent assassination attempts and, according to US intelligence are heavily infiltrated by insurgents. Attempts to reach Cardona directly were unsuccessful.
But Cardona’s physical well-being is not the only issue of concern connected to his transfer. According to former senior U.S. military officers and others interviewed by TIME, sending a convicted abuser back to Iraq to train local police sends the wrong signal at a time when the U.S. is trying to bolster the beleagured government in Baghdad, where the horrors of Abu Ghraib are far from forgotten. “If news of this deployment is accurate, it represents appallingly bad judgment,” says retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who commanded a division in the first Gulf War. “The symbolic message perceived in Iraq will likely be that the U.S. is simply insensitive to the abuse of their prisoners.”
Update: Pentagon now says it’s delaying the transfer due to the publicity.