An extraordinarily complicated situation and I have no doubt at all that
orders (be they explicit or nudge nudge type) came down from above to beat
the crap out of Iraqi prisoners. The American christian (I use small c
because they are clearly not particularly Christian) conservative element
has always been pretty vague on the subleties of the Middle East. Hearts and
minds are not really on the agenda at all. As an aside to that, it is
interesting that the British Army quotes its experience in N Ireland and
whatever about the QLR I think that events so far have shown that the BA is
doing a better job in the hearts and minds stakes than the Americans. Many
of us in N Ireland would not have thought the BA had a bull's notion about
hearts and minds but there you are, it seems they did learn something from
policing us.
And no, Ahmed, of course it is not all right for Americans to torture Iraqis
because Saddam was a butcher, I think that even the conservative heartland
can see that and I think it augurs badly for the political future of Bush
and those turds around him.
I thought yesterday in the car listening to the news about an upcoming
public (public! can you imagine?) court martial that the Pentagon schemers
are probably thinking that busting a few buck privates, pensioning off a
couple of senior reservists, spreading some baksheesh around prisoners and
their families, maybe even some senior Pentagon dudes going out early,  that
this will be enough to buy some time, save the asses of Rummy and his
patrone, lil George. I pray to God and to Allah that such does not happen.
Getting GW and his cronies out of the White House is possibly the most
important thing for the world this year.

Declan

<<"Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, under pressure to resign after taking
responsibility for the scandal, has warned that there are many more images
of abuse, including a video, all of which show "blatantly sadistic, cruel
and inhuman" acts."

But Saddam did much worse.  Much much worse.

That's alright then>>