Chuck responds:

Your own paragraph only equates our bad behavior with that of
others, which does not make it right. The fact that there are
criminals in others' military, as well as ours, does not make it
right. The fact that we prosecute (although not to the extent that our
host countries would always like) and others do not does not make it
right to commit the crimes.

There always seems to be an excuse, too. The prison guard scandals point up the
excuses, the most recent of which is, "The soldiers weren't trained." WTF does
training have to do with common decency? You don't bring in some nasty little
twerp girl soldier to point at a person's privates and grin. You don't pile
naked men atop one another...ah hell. You don't do anything those redneck
idiots did. And the Army should NOT have to train them to not do those things.

That said, it is now being stated that some intelligence types egged them on.
If that's the case, the intel jackasses should be stripped of rank, drummed out
of the service (or, if civilians, fired and locked out of employment with any
U.S. government entity) after a term in the brig...er, stockade as the Army
terms it.

Certainly, superior officers gave too much latitude to the troops. The superior
officers should be punished as severely as the troops, but they won't be. A
colonel or three and a general or two may be fired...that means early
retirement at full pension. Pfui!

That sort of punishment might at least slow down the idiocies that seem to take
place in such situations with all to great regularity.

Charlie Self
"A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers." H. L. Mencken