'Charges dropped' does not mean 'not guilty'

Prisoners hung upside down while slapped, electrically shocked, beaten unconscious, stripped naked and anally probed, menaced by dogs, chained and deprived of water and food. This type of torture is used in the military against state enemies in uncivilized nations, like in the Soviet gulag, the Chinese under Mao, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
And also, allege former detainees in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, in the United States.

Donald Rumsfeld, who resigned as defense secretary in 2006, and three other senior military officers who were charged in last November with responsibility for abuse and torture policies in the military, dodged this very lethal bullet when the charges were dismissed last week due to lack of standing.

Brought by Human Rights First and the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of nine Iraqi and Afghan detainees, the charges against Rumsfeld were overturned on grounds that government officials can not be held personally liable for actions related to their government service. While the human rights organizations argued that the Constitution and international law clearly prohibits torture and requires responsibility on the behalf of commanders when abuse is known, defense countered that Iraqi and Afghan nationals in U.S. custody were not covered by constitutional protections, and that US officials were acting “within the scope of their official duties” and were immune from lawsuits. With the resignation of Rumsfeld in 2006, plaintiffs hoped to sidestep that by saying his legal immunity no longer held, but U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan rejected that and other arguments. Hampering the military in its war on terror with liability in lawsuits such as this, he ruled, would “invite enemies to use our own federal courts to obstruct the armed forces' ability to act decisively and without hesitation in defense of our liberty and national interests.”

But on the other hand, how can the United States force democracy down the necks of the Iraqi people on the ground that it is a better system than Saddam's if our government uses the same reprehensible tactics as the one we are trying to displace?