BACK ON MARCH 11, I posted about a criminal investigation being conducted against American soldiers accused of savagely torturing and beating to death two prisoners at the Bagram interrogation center in Afghanistan.

Jeanne at Body and Soul, in a March 23 post, writes that the investigation is now complete. The results? The Pentagon has initiated "disciplinary proceedings" against a grand total of 2 out of the 28 U.S. soldiers and reservists implicated in the murders. Jeanne also notes the original charges that led to the criminal investigation: Assault, dereliction of duty, and involuntary manslaughter. These charges were filed in response to the following actions:

• Chaining the prisoners to the ceiling.
• Kicking and beating the chained prisoners, in the groin and the legs.
• Repeated unlawful knee strikes over a period of 5 days, destroying the prisoner's leg muscle tissue.
• Shoving or slamming the prisoners into walls and tables.
• Forcing the prisoners to contort their bodies into painful positions for long periods of time.
• Forcing water into prisoners' mouths until they could not breathe.

As Jeanne asked in an earlier post, "Just where is the 'involuntary' in that?"

And what sort of "disciplinary proceeding" would be appropriate for an assault so savage that a man's thigh tissue is "pulpified" and an autopsy reveals that his injuries are comparable to those of a person run over by a bus?