We've become what we despise

I'm really just saddened today. Saddened and sickened by the latest reports that have come from Iraq, tales of torture and humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib (which should now be called My Lai 2.0), of forcing naked Iraqis into simulated sexual positions, of attaching electrical wires to others.

Somehow, we live in a country where we still believe we can take the moral high ground, despite all evidence to the contrary. The official Army reaction was that "this is a small minority of the military, and it's not the Army." In fact, it seems that mercenaries have been running the prison, which is enough of an outrage, that the military is not even in direct control of prisoners of war (This is the true inevitable consequence of outsourcing, as a nation not of workers but of administrators we eventually descend into chaos as we lose all sense of what anyone is doing in our name). This is fucked up on so many levels the eyes are bugging out of my head.

There are links to all of this, a lot of other outlets have covered this better than I ever could. We deserve to be condemned internationally, we deserve to be isolated from the world community, just like any other sponsor of human rights abuse. Yet we'll continue to hear wingnuts say that "We had to get rid of Saddam because he had torture chambers and rape rooms!" Right, so we could install our OWN torture chambers and rape rooms.

Billmon
Kos

I'm sure all the other links to your right have details on this story as well.