Sergeant Joseph M. Darby....the whistleblower

[slipslidingaway]

we need to show some courage as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Darby

"...Darby had agonized for a month beforehand, but finally decided to blow the whistle on his former friends explaining "It violated everything I personally believed in and all I'd been taught about the rules of war."


http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0516/p09s02-coop.html

"...It took courage for Darby to stand up for justice. He must have known that it would make him a pariah with his colleagues, but he followed his conscience. Later, some of his neighbors back home in Maryland made it clear that they disapproved of Darby's actions. After hearing that he had been praised in Washington, one local veteran told the press, "They can call him what they want. I call him a rat." For his courage, Darby has received death threats, and the Army has had to provide him with special protection.

"To be courageous," wrote John F. Kennedy in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Profiles in Courage," "requires no exceptional qualifications.... It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all."

When the opportunity was presented to Joseph Darby, he grasped it and rescued American values from further degradation.

Monday Darby will be given the Kennedy Library Foundation's Profile in Courage Award by Caroline Kennedy for "upholding the rule of law that we embrace as a nation."

But to fully honor Darby's courage, it is essential to determine how the values he and other American soldiers are defending came to be trampled on at Abu Ghraib. A number of military investigations have been completed and low-ranking soldiers prosecuted, but so far little attention has been paid to the linkage between what happened in the prison and the high-level policies adopted two years earlier that swept aside international standards for interrogating prisoners in the war on terrorism."

[slipslidingaway]

1. kick n/t

[Mnemosyne]

2. I salute Sgt. Darby's courage. people... n/t

[slipslidingaway]

3. The pictures shined light on the torture issue....thank you. n/t

[Mnemosyne]

6. I love sunshine! n/t

[TNOE]

4. Didn't Rumsfeld out him?

I thought he was supposed to have remained anonymous.

[slipslidingaway]

5. That's my recollection, but here is a bit more...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/07/60minutes/main2238188.shtml

From page 2.

"...Several months later, 60 Minutes II broke the story of the pictures. An article in "The New Yorker" revealed Darby's role, though no one in Iraq seemed to notice.

But then, while Darby was having lunch in the mess hall watching Donald Rumsfeld testify before Congress about Abu Ghraib, the defense secretary said, "There are many who did their duty professionally and we should mention that as well. First, Specialist Joseph Darby, who alerted appropriate authorities that abuses were occurring."

"I just stopped in mid bite. I was eating and I just stopped. What the hell just happened? Now the anxiety came back. Now, I'm worried," Darby remembers. "Everyone in the unit knew within four hours."

[Uncle Joe]

7. Kicked and too late to recommend for a courageous patriot and human being.

:patriot:

Thanks for the thread, slipslidingaway.