Those soldiers and contractors that have done this to these Iraqis should be drummed out of the service and should be imprisoned.  I was in the service (Navy), and treatment of POW’s was something that I witnessed once or twice.  We tended to their wounds, and held them until they were released into the custody of a third party nation, as we did not have diplomatic relations with the government they represented.  We made sure they were fed, clothed, warm, and had a place that was sheltered, even if it wasn’t the Hilton. 

All that being said, don’t think that soldiers from our United States have never before tortured enemy POW’s.  It isn’t right, in any case, but it isn’t really unexpected. 

A vet that I oppose politically, yet respect as a man, mentioned it in the terms of “enemy Vs. enemy”, as opposed to “United States soldier Vs. POW”.  The enemy becomes an object, and therefore subhuman.  Moral safeguards against abuse are lowered within that environment, especially in the case of the week-minded.  Followers are much more apt to torture....I think a review of the Nuremburg Trials can prove this much more clearly than I can.  The mantra of “I was following orders..” can be found everywhere.  It isn’t even a conscious decision at times, in my opinion...maybe the morality of the situation take a back seat to dealing with the enemy.  I never reached that point in my military career, so I am just putting my thoughts and theories here.  Take that for what you want, but I have observed that followers have done this more than leaders.  The leaders who order exterminations and torture were sadist psychotics (Hitler, Hussein, Stalin, Pol Pot).  The people underneath, who actualy did the torture, were rather bland, regular people, for the most part.  Again, I look at the Nuremburg Trials for that little observation. 

Usually, though, people who object to the torture of prisoners under a expansionistic, repressive state end up being tortured and murdered themselves.  A MSN search on the subject brought back no data, so I am assuming that those stories died with the participants and the witnesses.  It is much easier, and safer, to follow the lead.  It is a real burden to the objecting person to blow the whistle.....in a country like Iraq, you would have been next on the rack.  In Hitler’s Germany, or in Cambodia, or Stalinist Russia, objecting to the torture would leave you dead.  Even objecting to something you believe to be wrong in the US Navy more often or not makes you an outcast...there are powerful interpersonal and organizational pressures to follow the crowd.  The Navy won’t kill you for blowing the whistle, but your mates will reject you as a mate. 

So, you have a bunch of soldiers, who are conditioned (for the most part, at least the low-ranked enlisted guys and gals are) to follow orders, no matter the content. They also work in a prison, where the prisoners are all members of a sect that blew up the WTC and the Pentagon, and are viscerally hateful. 

So, the soldiers say, fuck them.  They tried to kill us first.  We’re here helping them, building schools and shit, and they try to kill us for it.  well, they can fuck off.  You know, they think they’re so tough......and it starts. 

Humiliation.  Hell, if their not human beings, it’s easy!  Make them strip, blindfold them, move them around a bit.  Tell one to grab his dick and lift it up...have one kneel down, and have another stand right hin front of him.  Man, that’s pretty funny!  Just do it!  See how they treat women?  Man, we’re showing them, aren’t we. 

Think it was a coincidence that there were women in a lot of these pictures?  You don’t think that there wasn’t a thought in their minds that these Islamic guys, who abuse their women and treat them like garbage, deserve this? 

Well, one of the soldiers shakes his head (her head), and says, “Guys, we gotta stop this.  This is wrong..”.  Immediately, that person is looked at with mistrust.  He’s now a squealer, a prick, a rat, a crybaby.....he’s not one of the team anymore.  They stop doing it around this person, but they keep doing it.  So, he goes up the chain, maybe more than once, and, finally, someone listens, and goes down there to put an end to it.  Reports are filled out, people are questioned, hearings are held, and people are busted.  The informant is transferred, because he(she) is now a target of mistrust and anger within the unit, and a report is sent up the chain of command.  Of course, with the new Openness of Government rules, someone gets a hold of the story, and, here we are. 

This proves two things to me...one, that soldiers are soldiers, and these things are going to happen as long as armies march on the earth, and fight each other in wars.  Secondly, it shows how great our nation is....again. 

Nowhere in the world would this be treated with the outrage that it is being treated here.  We are actually calling for the Defense Secretary to apologize, because this offends us so much.  We KNOW we are better than this, and that our cause is so much more moral, and noble, than what the detractors say.  We are upset because this noble task has been sullied by a couple dozen dimwits. 

That is why they will be punished.  This is why our Army is so grand, because they are dealing with this very expeditiously, and the President is rapping Rumsfeld on the head, and ordering the military to fix this.  I would be much more appalled if there was no outrage.....and that is why Rush Limbaugh is troubling me, with his total downplaying of this.  This isn’t the end of the world, nor does it make the Left’s position rational or correct, but it was wrong.  We can’t ignore this, but we can’t equate this with failure. 

One more thing....it says something about John Kerry. 

If he saw all these atrocities, and he didn’t do something to stop them while he was in Vietnam, what does that say about him?  It says a couple of things:

1.  He was more concerned with getting along, and then getting out (he requested an early departure, and worked like a dog to get that band-aid turned into a Purple Heart, his third).  He waited to talk about the ‘atrocities’ when he could make political points doing it, but didn’t act when they were right in front of him.

2.  He has no strength of character.  If he truly believed that there were atrocities, he should have acted right away to stop them within the chain of command. 

3.  He has remained totally true to this characterization to this very day.  He supports NAFTA, then backs off to get the Union vote.  That and his SUV’s, with his voracious support of environmentalism....anything to get along, and avoid making those near him mad, or have them reject him.  Losing his support structure would reduce him to insignificance.  It would have in Vietnam, it would have in the VVFW, it would have done so at Yale, and it would now. 

I await your comments.