Finally, Taguba commended the 165th MI Battalion based in Darmstadt, Germany, which "excelled in providing perimeter security and force protection at Abu Ghraib." The battalion's leader, LTC Robert P. Walters Jr., "demanded standards be enforced and worked endlessly to improve discipline throughout the FOB (forward operating base)."
Many other units such as the Nevada Army National Guard's 72nd Military Police Company, not mentioned in the report, renovated and guarded Abu Ghraib and other prisons with strict adherence to the Geneva Convention and laws of war.
While dodging constant bullets, company commander Capt. Troy Armstrong told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the 72nd MPs reconstructed Abu Ghraib; protected the perimeter; escorted criminals to trial; and operated a separate jail in east-central Baghdad. Capt. Armstrong directed his soldiers to "be firm, fair and respectful at all times." He added, "All our soldiers know you couldn't take pictures of detainees period. And that was crystal clear."
One of Armstrong's men, Spc. Douglas Fry, rightly expressed unconditional disgust at the digital camera-wielding dolts at Abu Ghraib: "The acts of a few knuckleheads make the United States look bad."
So do the sorry excuses of their weasel lawyers, who blame a "lack of training" and invoke the "just following orders" card to explain away derelict behavior and inhumane treatment of prisoners. And so do the near-gleeful indulgences of opportunists on the left and right who have used Abu Ghraib to advance every agenda under the sun from dredging up Vietnam to excluding women and gays from the military, to emptying Guantanamo Bay, repealing the Patriot Act and burning Playboy.
For the sake of all good Americans, President Bush, punish the wrongdoers, reward the right-doers, and get the knuckleheads at home and abroad to knock it off.