US Atrocities in the War
Stevie T asks in the comments what I think about the pictures. I assume he means the pictures showing crude mistreatment of Iraqis in prison, recently aired on 60 Minutes. Providing this thread for you to discuss/vent about it if you're so inclined.

I have to admit I am reluctant to pile on this story, which is why I haven't posted anything. I choose to believe that almost all of the US soldiers there are as honorable as you can hope, follow the rules of warfare and human decency, and just want to do their jobs and get out alive and intact. They have already had to endure the justly incensed glare of an occupied nation, ineptly mismanaged by the bungling planners in the White House and the Pentagon. Now, thanks to this incident, troops have to endure the more personal glare of a humiliated and angry nation who, in one story, thanks to a handful of American terrorists in uniform, have had their worst fears come true, and their harshest charges vindicated, about America.

I hate this story most because it's unfair to draw any general conclusions from it. I don't think it's right to let this reflect on the majority of the soldiers there, but inevitably it will. Outrageous acts like that want to become lessons about something, and I feel for everyone there--soldiers and Iraqis alike--for the lessons that will be drawn from it. These atrocities will, without question, make all of their lives more difficult.

The story that really should come out of all this I think, which is getting lots of play in the blogosphere, and none that I've heard in the mainstream media, is the role that paid mercenaries have played causing trouble in this war, and in this incident particularly. Apparently the main offenders here were not rank-and-file soldiers, but hired guns accountable to no one, and hated by everyone (the 4 that were brutalized earlier in Fallujah...). Kos is all over this story here and here. It's one of those "why-isn't-everyone-reporting-this"? screamers.

{UPDATE: Seymour Hersh, in The New Yorker, paints a picture that undercuts my belief in the limited scope of this problem}