A prayer for Ian Fishback

Once again, the blogosphere's attenuated attention span disappoints me. Remember Captain Ian Fishback? No? Well, he's dropped off the media radar, both the blog media and the "MSM". As far as we know, he's probably rotting in some brig, holding out bravely against attempts to break him and make him rat out the Sergeants who joined him in testifying about the way torture has been practiced and sanctioned in Iraq.

We should all take a moment and send him a prayer. Or better yet, send him an email. I just did.

And to be fair, Andrew Sullivan continues to invoke his name in his ardent effort to expose and abolish the use of torture by the U.S. Andrew cites his words in his recent New Republic article, "The Abolition of Torture". He also cites him in a recent blog post, Wakey Wakey

National Review's Mark Levin wakes up, stretches, rubs his eyes and asks:

And where is all the evidence that U.S. armed forces and intelligence serves are engaged in torture? Is it widespread? Where is this occurring? McCain hasn't made the case. We get mostly the same kind of platitudes he was famous for during the campaign-finance reform debate, e.g., the system is "corrupt," money equals corruption, and so forth. Shouldn't we stop beating up ourselves over this until such evidence is presented? We seem to be making law here based on hypothetical arguments, or worse -- left-wing and enemy propaganda.

I refer Levin to the Schmidt Report, the Taguba Report, the Jones-Fay Report, the Schlesinger Report, the mounds of evidence collected by the International Red Cross, the hundreds of carefully checked newspaper reports documenting torture, abuse, murder, rape, and beatings in every single theater of this war by every branch of the armed services against defenseless military detainees. I refer him to the testimony of West Point graduate Ian Fishback and countless others. I refer him to the many memos constructed by the Bush administration defining and redefining "torture" to the point of meaninglessness. May I offer him a cup of coffee and a warm welcome to reality as well?

Thank you Andrew Sullivan for keeping the anti-torture torch burning. And thank you, Captain Ian Fishback, wherever you are, for your brave patriotism. We are forever in debt to selfless warriors like you.