Been reading this blog for awhile, tho this is my first post. As far as the treatment of the prisoners goes, on the one hand I'm outraged at the treatment, but on the other you have to consider the fact that these are prisoners in every sense of the word. Considering the fact that the ratio of guards to prisoners is insanely in favor of the prisoners, it's hard to fault the guards for trying to maintain control at all costs. How this is exactly accomplished is up to some debate. I'm not in favor of the sexual degradation that has occurred, but the use of force is probably something that is necessary. Reading the story of how two prison guards were supposed to oversee some 500+ prisoners is really rather frightening. There's only so many bullets you can fire, rubber or otherwise, before the situation totally gets out of hand. There are many detractors of the soldiers, but imagine for a moment that you were in their shoes: what would you do?
And I totally agree with the point that these same "outraged" people totally ignore the fact that Saddam's regime was absolutely brutal in regards to both their prisoners and their so-called citizens.
Just my two cents.