[dogscoff]

an Iraqi who again think of women as objects and not people.

Who says that Iraqis think of women as objects? That is a massive- and completely untrue- generalisation. Even in Saddam's time, Iraqi women were educated and had most, if not all of the rights enjoyed by men. Do I need to remind you that Saddam actively supressed religious fundamentalism, so the kind of attitudes found under the Taliban in Afghanistan just weren't prevalent in Iraq. Even before Saddam, the Iraqis were an affluent, well-educated, ex-colonial nation with an extraordinarily rich history. To lump them all into the bracket of "sexist arabs" is massively innaccurate, and only exposes in you the kind of bigotry that you accuse them of.

I believe they were ordered to do what they did and I feel that there only mistake was not to get these orders in writing. There is an old military rule that says, "Cover your own ***."

"Only following orders" is no excuse. If the US army does not have systems in place for soldiers to appeal against illegal orders then things are even worse than I thought.

If they had been ordered to line those prisoners up (many of whom have been proved to be just innocent civilians, wrongly arrested) and shoot them deead, would "just following orders" be OK then? If you were a soldier, would you follow that order? Would you do so with a clean conscience? Again, if the answer is yes, and you are, as I suspect from the language used in your post, an american, then you confirm a lot of the fears and criticisms that the rest of the world has about the US.

They did not harm these men,

Considering the it was the US that popularised making huge legal claims for "emotional trauma", I find that incredibly ironic. I'd also like to see you look a rape victim in the eye and tell them that sexual abuse doesn't harm the victim. Actually, I take that back. I wouldn't like to see it at all.

The idea that breaches of human rights- and the ones you have mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg as far as the US' breaches of the Geneva convention are concerned- can be swept under the rug as "anti-war hysteria" is outrageous, especially when the US administration is first to cry out when a US prisoner is abused in some way.

Finally, if this post seems harsh, it could have been a lot worse. I really had to bite my tongue to keep it as civil as it is.