I'm sick of looking at the torture pictures. Now, a new batch, with videos

[bigtree]

I'm glad they're still showing them, though. It could bring our soldiers home as folks come to grips with the hollowness of the reasons behind our invasion and occupation. The hypocricy. Freedom from tyranny? What a joke.

[loyalsister]

1. I wish they would stop myself

You don't think they know????????????????
Something that has gone unexamined or completely ignored are the potential reasons behind all of this. It's real easy to write off the experience off the perpetrator as irrelevant, but I really think that we should track this down, because the hollowness you describe is something that I am sure they are very aware of.
People seem to forget that a huge number of these soldiers are reservists who thought this thing was over long ago and that they would be going home. Now there is no end in sight, they have been lied to, and things are just getting worse. I suspect it feels like they are trapped and victimized by now. It's tough to imagine how angry they are. This is most definitely the point where the meanest, basest parts of people begin their rumblings.
The other soldiers have a chance to express their aggression in combat. The guards exposed their ugliness in sick ways that indeed should be punished.
My point is that to focus on this without making an effort to understand what has happened, is to lose sight of the fact that it is ALL part of the horrifying nature of this war. The fact that it was so heavily propagandized probably has a lot to do with this and the large number of suicides.
Soldiers do not do well when they don't understand the reality of war before it hits. When they get there and it does hit, they have the least chance of adapting in a way that is reasonably "sane."

This clearly has happened because of flexibility that starts at the top. That should be a focus. I don't see any need to continue to publicly demonize these soldiers independently.
Surely, investigations and punishments that are not media circuses would be enough. They WILL suffer beyond our worst nightmares after this. Discovering the monster inside of you under extreme circumstances is the stuff of suicide.

[Jacobin]

2. Just think about it though

Janet's tit is history!!!