The accused soldiers can AND SHOULD directly BLAME Bush: his edict

declaring "war on terra" prisoners special cases with absolutely no rights according the Geneva convention (Gitmo, Americans caught in America, the Muslims deported) communicates the idea that these people have absolutely no right or recourse and can be treated as objects of derision and despised as sub-humans.

I got the idea from this post from keithyboy:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1529565

Cmon man---Bush had NOTHING to do with those soldiers torturing or humiliating those Iraqis. Don't let your hatred of Bush blind you.

Gitmo? Who exempted American soldiers from international tribunals?

That's no copout for abusing POW's (or supposed POW's.) It doesn't give them a "get out of jail free" card.

... a "out of jail free" card. What we're talking about here is that a lot of high level, very high level people should be taking responsibility for this.

They are going to smack a few peons and declare themselves innocent. I don't buy it for a second.

These soldiers are only enacting on the PERSONAL level what Bush has enacted on the INTERNATIONAL level.

There is a definite causal relationship here.

in Chief. You cannot be the Commander in Chief just to dress up and show yourself in a carrier. You must bear responsibility for your actions.

The Yamashita Principle

Operational Commanders

The Yamashita case is a fine example of operational command. The accused, Supreme Military Commander of the Japanese Imperial Army on the Philippines and Governor of the islands, was charged with breaching his duty to control his troops, thereby permitting them to perpetrate numerous and large-scale offenses.(122) Despite his de jure command, Yamashita, who assumed his post only eleven days before the invasion by United States forces,(123) ordered a partial evacuation. He then split the remainder of the Japanese forces into three separate fighting units, ceding full command of two, and commanding the other himself.(124) Contrary to his orders, the evacuation did not occur, and Yamashita was left isolated in a remote mountainous region, apparently lacking communications with his headquarters and the two other commanders.(125)

Yamashita's conviction was upheld for acts of troops beyond his de facto control, on the ground that operational command responsibility cannot be ceded for the purposes of the doctrine of command responsibility even though the specific aspects of such command are actually ceded to others.(126) This rule, referred to as the "delegation principle," is recognized as a general principle of criminal law.(127) It strains the mind to consider the possibility of upholding criminal responsibility in cases where both de facto control is missing and de jure command was already ceded for military purposes and not for the purpose of escaping criminal responsibility.(128) Certainly, it must have seemed to the Supreme Court that authority was delegated for the purpose of evading responsibility which raised the risks of crime.(129) Command responsibility cannot be avoided.

http://www.asil.org/ajil/bantekas.htm

somebody knows a lot about the issue.

Saigon68 brought forward this issue on a different topic. The Yamashita principle appears applicable to each.

All responsibility rests with Bush!

I believe that individuals guilty of such abuses must bear the blame on a personal level. However, there's also the issue of blame on a collective level, and there are abundant examples of unjust wars perpetrated by self-righteous and deceitful leaders, that led to atrocities.

Now back to my regularly scheduled knitting,
morcat

that is what he was doing on his french canadian bus tour today

Iraq now?

iraqi's against freedom are all terrorists...so abuse/torture whatever you want to call it is against them as if they are alqaeda

he blamed Saddam Hussein for and went to war to stop.