A lot of Americans like this partial view, it confirms and reinforces core beliefs...
The alternative explanation, the one Hersh is building -- that the War on Terror is rotten to the bone, a kind of illness -- is too horrible (and frightening really) to accept. .d.
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I am not sure about why what appears to me to be obvious, isn't fleshed out in so many words---even by Hersh, yet.
I think it is partly ignorance and partly a subtle mis-understanding. I don't think is complete denial, just yet.
What is at issue is a little on the subtle side, since most people don't think about what a prison system is, or what police, prosecutors and courts do. I suspect you have to have been to jail at least once to have a concrete idea in mind of how the system known as criminal justice actually works.
Luckily I've been there and done that in a very trivial way. Also I know maybe a dozen lawyers, and among them prosecuting attorneys, probation department case workers, criminal defense attorneys, a judge and a former Cal state supreme court clerk---along with several in civil rights advocacy (Yes the legal profession has a lot of people in wheelchairs.)
Over the years and endless conversations with these legal beagles I've gotten used to thinking about law and justice as a concrete part of government---and not some abstract idea called `justice.' So I suspect that the way I think about these things isn't very common.
In any event, just to mention one minor detail about Abu Ghraib and Oakland. In Oakland when you are thrown in jail, the cops or guards don't usually come into your cell and routinely beat you up, to get you ready for a hearing.
Sure they can, and then charge you with resisting arrest or fighting with another prisoner---but that means reports, evidence, maybe witnesses, testimony, blah, blah, blah. Very messy. If you are already in jail with no bruises, it is not a good idea to give you a couple bruises before they take you over to see a judge. You are likely to complain in court, request a medical exam and treatment, and all that looks bad. Of course if you are dark skinned, then they can inflict a fair amount of damage before it is easily noticeable by non-medical people.
These sorts of subtle difference in domestic criminal justice I guess just escape notice.
I might be hoping that most people don't understand this stuff, rather than the alternative, which is they do, and don't care.
CG