Forgive and forget?

I don't know if you read the US newspaper Socialist Worker but if not, you should. It's great. In fact It's particularly good on the US elections as it happens.

Anyway, I was browsing the latest edition when I came across this shocking report about Sgt. Santos Cardona, a military policeman from Fullerton, California. Cardona was a dog handler in Abu Ghraib and was seen in various photos harrassing terrified inmates.

Cardona was convicted of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault for his role in the scandal and served 90 days of "hard labour" (something not quite right about punishing someone for behaving like a barbarian by being completely barbaric to them - anyhoo) and was demoted. Demoted. Not sacked.

So Cordona continues his duties as a military policeman with a criminal record resulting from one of the most famous torture cases of recent times. O - K, but the military would still be aware of his misdeeds and give him work appropriate to his skill set, yes?

They wouldn't, for instance, send him back to Iraq to train the Iraqi police would they? Well, that's exactly what happened last week. What skills is he bringing to job that the US army thinks will be of use? Or are they hoping the Iraqi police will be teaching him a level of professionalism he'd not previously acquired?

Interestingly Cordona was acquited of a number of offences because his lawyers had argued that his actions were condoned by his superiors - and with this recent posting it's difficult to see how we could believe anything else.