Karpinski not a patsy.

Editor,
What a remarkable coincidence, that Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, and others worked so hard to cook up legal cover for George Bush to order captives tortured -- and of course he'd never do such a thing -- and six months later bad apples torturing captives started turning up under rock after rock in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

George Bush was duly shocked by these revelations, and in the spirit of O.J. Simpson's vowing not to rest until the real murderer is found, he promised to prosecute the guilty. Now we have Janice Karpinski refusing to fall on her sword over this, and she -- irony of ironies -- is the sole individual with rank in the chain of command who is going to be punished.

I find it fascinating that even after JohnYoo's appearances defending torture on PBS and his op-ed pieces to the same effect months before all this broke, the American people and the American press are accepting this desecration of the most fundamental American values with barely a whimper. I wonder what justifications will be found to excuse death squads when John Negroponte begins operating them in the United States.