Sunday, May 2

Everyone knows about the recent scandal involving US soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners. There are several details that make these actions even more horrific. The prisoners are mostly civilians, and they are being tortured in the same place that Saddam Hussein used to torture innocents. Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker, suggests that higher-ups must have encouraged, if not ordered, these tortures, to shame the prisoners and prep them for interrogation. The expressions on the faces of the young soldiers, their visible candor before the camera, suggests they didn't think they were doing anything wrong. The military says these crimes are not "systematic," but a report by a US general says otherwise.