Today the focus of the View was on the documentary The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (Appropriately referred to as GAG in this post.) by filmmaker Rory Kennedy.

Of course we begin the interview with accolades by Rosie- It’s an “amazing piece of work.” It is amazing, alright. This documentary asserts that the military personnel who engaged in the disgusting behavior seen in photos and video were mere victims in an overarching plot by the government to humiliate and degrade every person in Abu Ghraib.

Of course the people she finds to support her contentions are those who were convicted of engaging in inappropriate behavior or obvious lefties who have written on the evils of torture, broadly defined as anything that makes a prisoner feel bad.

As I watched the documentary, the effort to whitewash the actions of those individuals while painting broad brushstrokes condemning the military leaders and the President was disturbing to say the least.

Kennedy used several excerpts from an interview with John Yoo, formerly of the Department of Justice and now a well-respected law professor, to try to connect her very gray dots. She seemed to extract portions of his comments to stress the information that would bolster her argument. I have heard Yoo speak on issues related to torture several times. Her use of editing to showcase specific phrases taken from statements made by Yoo do not in any way reflect the level of his scholarship at the DOJ or as a law professor.

Kennedy was haunted by the question of who would do this so decided to do a documentary from the perspective of the soldiers. Her presumption was clear: these soldiers had to be taking orders from above. She thought it would be a psychological film. They all said they did it because they were told to do it.

When I watched the documentary, it seemed these people did it because they could do it. The one person who did give them orders, Specialist Graner, has been punished- sentenced to 10 years in prison for his conduct.

Throughout GAG these people talked about listening to prisoners scream and described their personal conduct but they did not offer evidence they were told to do what they did. There was no evidence presented regarding orders from the chain of command. Kennedy asks us to assume that no person would do these things without an order.

Elizabeth tried to call Kennedy on her efforts to stretch the facts to fit her theory. Kennedy couldn’t answer the questions in any articulate way and instead just said the use of torture demeans us as a nation. She, like many liberals, clings to the Geneva Conventions as the solution to all war’s problems. If only terrorists would agree to also abide by these conventions, they may have an argument. This is like saying in a hockey game, only one team can check. Oh yeah, the Kennedy’s only get football analogies- pretend only one side can tackle.

While agreeing that the acts committed at Abu Ghraib were wrong, Elizabeth pushes her to acknowledge that our entire military is not the problem.

Rosie squashed Elizabeth’s efforts to raise the issues and told her she couldn’t blather. Wow, she is one to talk…

Elizabeth was right. People like Kennedy and Rosie find it very easy to believe that our government is always wrong. Kennedy tried to paint the army as the problem because at the core of it she is anti-military. She seeks to undermine the President and our country through her partisan film-making.

11 low ranking soldiers who have served time for their actions would like us to believe that everyone including Rumsfeld and Bush knew what they are doing. I find it hard to believe that any of the leaders of our military would think it made sense to have low level, untrained people engage in this behavior,  for no other reason than this is the sort of result that could easily be predicted.

By the way, Rosie missed the boat on the whistle blower: The person who blew the whistle was not involved in these acts. Darby got a disc of photos from Graner. When he opened it and saw what was on it he immediately turned it over to his superiors who took action. Rumsfeld thanked Darby. This, of course, can only be more evidence of evil doing by Rumsfeld. The public thanking was to scare him and let others know they shouldn’t do likewise. There is no winning for conservatives.

Conservatives should watch this documentary so they can engage in a discussion about the failure of Kennedy to make her point.

While some in our military have done horrible things, the majority of our soldiers are brave men and women who love this country and the principles so clearly defined by our founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Kennedy may get accolades from her friends, but many good Americans will watch her documentary with sadness as they understand the truth: her misrepresentations overreach and damage the reputation of our leaders and our country.

She should be ashamed.