U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Refusing To Torture

From Turkana at The Left Coaster here.

In a heartbreaking and infuriating article at Huffington Post, Greg Mitchell recounts what happened when a person of conscience was confronted with Bush Administration inhumanity:

With each new revelation on U.S. torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo (and who, knows, probably elsewhere), I am reminded of the chilling story of Alyssa Peterson, who I have written about numerous times in the past three years but now with especially sad relevance. Appalled when ordered to take part in interrogations that, no doubt, involved what we would call torture, she refused, then killed herself a few days later, in September 2003.

Peterson should be hailed as a martyr and a national heroine. But the military, of course, engaged in a cover-up. The cause of her death was listed as a "non-hostile weapons discharge"- possibly accidental. An intrepid local reporter named Kevin Elston, from her home state of Arizona, decided to do what national reporters now so infrequently do: investigate and report. . . .