I'm wondering if anyone else has seen these really terrible pictures of the Iraqui prisoners of war who have been tortured by our own American soldiers stationed in Iraq.

I'd rather not repeat the nature of some of the photos, but they were especially disturbing to me because of the response of many of my peers, who felt that our soldiers were justified in these "interrogation techniques".

This sparked a thought in my mind about the nature of war. It seems that war will never really end, because there is a seemingly endless trend of retaliation, especially right now between the US and Iraq. Yes, Iraq was responsible for several of our US soldiers being kidnapped and tortured as prisoners of war. But to retaliate against them and violate the provisions agreed upon during the Geneva Convention not only makes America appear hypocritical, but it makes us guilty of provoking now very probable future violations of the Geneva code against the United States.

In addition, I wonder where humanity is gone. When you hear about a car accident on the news and no one involved is anyone you know, does it make the consequences of the accident any less terrible for the people involved? No. Likewise, the pain inflicted on these Iraqui soldiers is no less painful and no more deserved than it is for our own soldiers. Granted, our own soldiers may be fighting for a cause that many of us support, however, not all of them support the cause as much as they simply represent our country. It is the same for the Iraqui soldiers. Many of them are bound to military service, regardless of their political views. So while those men being tortured may very well support the US efforts to purge Iraq of its governmental corruption, they are still being tortured, because a group of our soldiers has deemed them just as guilty of inhumanity as their leaders are. But who is really being inhumane?

I'm interested in what everyone else thinks about all of this.