Torture response

A friend of mine asked, what will the restless electorate do in response to the accusations that US servicemen tortured Iraqi prisoners?

I think the restless electorate appreciates and respects what the US Armed Forces do and will chalk this up to a few poor representatives of the whole, especially after Bush's unrelenting condemnation of the actors.

Of course, my condemnation would be: This is wholly unacceptable. Our servicemen and servicewomen are held to the highest individual standards of decency and integrity and any deviation from those standards is contrary to what the United States and its people stand for. The actions of these soldiers, if true, are criminal and contrary to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the UCMJ. The United States and the Coalition entered Iraq and freed 22 million people from one of the worst tyrants of the 20th century -- a tyrant who gassed his own citizens, used WMDs against the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs, used rape and torture as political weapons, jailed citizens on a whim and murdered his citizens at a rate that would make Stalin proud; our servicepeople must serve as a positive example, and not act in ways that could remind the Iraqi people of the horrors
they suffered for the past 24 years.

I'd expect our military to exercise better judgment -- there are and will be US prisoners of foreign conflicts. Our enemies need little motivation to mistreat our servicepeople.