While the United states Armed Forces (private mercenaries) are in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Iraq, the Philippines and west Africa defending “all freedom-loving people everywhere in the world,” Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, speaking at an American Enterprise Institute conference entitled “Winning Iraq,” comments on the recent Abu Ghraib prison hazing scandal: “[N]o country in the world upholds the Geneva Conventions on the Laws of Armed Conflict more steadfastly than does the United States. … We’ll deal promptly and properly with the terrible abuses.”

       NOTES:

• The hazing that went on at Abu Ghraib prison by members of the U.s. Armed Forces (private mercenaries) was quite mild compared to the torture that continued in Central Intelligence Agency “blacksites” more than a decade after the hazing scandal.
• Although Feith uses the word “country” here, the editors believe that he meant to use the word “nation,” in which a central government, with almost limitless power, treats its constituent states as mere enclaves, provinces, or sub-divisions of its greater self; as opposed to “Union,” which is a union of sovereign States under a federal system, with a central government whose powers are strictly limited by a respected Constitution.

       [added 12/23/2023] Thanks to Freedom’s Phoenix for this entry.

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