Originally Posted by: PonyOneit's hypocritical for the leaders of a nation who claim to try to spread democracy to every corner of the world and who claim to think that democracy is their path to break from that, give the finger to the world, and go in to do things their way. further attempts at exemption from Geneva human rights laws don't exactly paint the situation amid rampant claims of excessive brutality in any better light.

the Arab world seems to be prone to claims of abuse and humiliation, and denying that it has happened in this war is stupid as it has, but, at the same time i know that the majority of the American soldiers there have no desire to hurt anyone they don't have to. unfortunately, incidents like Abu Gharib only lend creedence to the voices of anti-american sentiment in the middle east and europe and asia, further adding to what can only be adequately described as a big freakin' mess.

Is anyone denying that there was prisoner abuse? I know that some people like Rumsfeld weren't taking responsibility, but should someone as high up as Rumsfeld take responsibility for the actions of prison guards at Abu Gharib? Of course not, it's the entire reasoning behind a beaurocracy.

Now, I'm certainly not condoning the actions taken by those guards, it is horrible and they should be (and I believe already were?) punished, along with anyone else committing such acts. However, American hostages have been burned alive, beheaded, dragged through the streets, surely such atrocities dwarf anything American troops have done.