[richlevy]

Originally posted by Undertoad
(Y'see Arabs are allowed to cut off tongues and hands and heads and beat themselves bloody with chains and cut themselves open and stone each other to death and be as warlike as possible to each other, but they can't possibly have another culture come in and put panties on their heads... it's just horrible for them.)

Actually, we Americans have our little quirks as well. While we find violence socially acceptable, sexuality is still more shocking. This is why it is easier to show a gunshot to the chest on TV than a bare nipple.

Americans might have accepted the electrodes, or the sleep deprivation, and said "Hey, that's the cost of doing business". The forced lewd acts however, cut across all lines. The liberals who weren't uptight about sex were still disturbed by abuse and the conservatives who might have accepted non-sexual abuse were shocked at the forced lewd acts.

In short, it was 'the perfect storm' (note overused phrase) in terms of unnacceptable behavior.

The deaths of individuals in custody is also an issue.

A senior army official said there had been investigations into 25 cases of death and 10 of abuse in US custody in Iraq or Afghanistan since December 2002.

The BBC's Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs says of the 25 deaths, 12 were found to be either of natural or "undetermined" causes, one was a "justifiable homicide", and two were murders. Ten inquiries are ongoing, he says.

Not jailed

An Army official said a soldier had been convicted of using excessive force when he shot dead a prisoner who was throwing stones at him.

He was thrown out of the army but did not go to jail.

The other murder was committed by a private contractor who worked for the CIA, the official said.

Killing someone who throws rocks at you is a judgment call. After all it happened at Kent State and noone was ever tried for murder. Killing individuals in custody should be a big deal. Unfortunately, the US has a poor history of punishing homicides on or near battlefields.

As a result of the My Lai massacre, Lt. Calley, who I believe was the only person to serve any time at all, served 3 years under house arrest before being pardoned.

After deliberating for 79 hours and 57 minutes, the jury returned a verdict. They had found Calley guilty of premeditated murder of 22 of the villagers of My Lai. One juror claimed that they “had labored long and hard to find some way, some evidence, or some flaw in the testimony so we could find Lt. Calley innocent.” Before the jury reconvened to decide his punishment, Calley was allowed to address the jury and said, “Yesterday you stripped me of all my honor, please by your actions that you take here today, don’t strip future soldiers of their honor-I beg you.” The prosecution responded that Calley had stripped himself of his honor by murdering women and children. After seven hours the jury sentenced Calley to life of hard labor. In the end, he only served only days in Fort Leavenworth, before being transferred back to Fort Benning, where he was placed under house arrest. His sentence was repeatedly reduced. Finally, he was pardoned by President Nixon. He was paroled in November, 1974.

It has always been believed that it is harder to punish someone for killing ten thousand people than 1. When killings, even of acknowleged innocents such as the children in the Philadelphia MOVE bombing, occur as a result of otherwise justifiable operations, there always seems to be a concern for the morale and future effectiveness of the police or military. It might be that authorities consider any severe punitive judgement would cause more social harm than the goodwill and rule of law associated with such a judgement justify.

A few months ago, everyone in the United States had what we thought was a purely intellectual excercise in the validity of using torture in the war on terror. In August 2002, the public had a short discussion about the issue when the US abstained from a vote to beef up the Geneva conventions on torture ABC News .

Personally, I am glad that we as a nation saw the pictures. I am tired of the public handing off responsibility to authorities and being insulated from the results. Doing so leads to real abuse, as was discovered during the Holocaust. If we as a culture really wish to justify torture to ourselves, than we need to see the results of such a decision so that we can take off the imaginary white hat we see ourselves wearing and realise that we are stepping closer and closer to becoming 'evildoers' ourselves.

It's one thing to choose not to be a vegetarian. It's another thing completely to pretend that the hamburger you are eating was grown on a hamburger tree.

Show us what war costs in men, money, and souls. Let us shed the hubris, fold up the 'Mission Accomplished', and never, ever, utter the phrase "bring it on" again. Maybe our next presidents, even if they have never been in combat, may more fully appreciate the true cost of war.