What these troops did was vicious, but compared to the normal brutality of war, it was light stuff. The present policy of slaughter, for Israel and oil, is no different from any other exercise in mass murder. Those who are most accountable for the crime are the ones who direct its battles, not the ones who perform its action.

Many still think that when murder is committed in a state sanctioned and verbally sanitized form called war, it leaves parents whose children's brains have been blown out somehow grateful that a professional bomber has done the deed, and not some amateur killer. After 2,000 years of attempted civilization, it is worse than naive for allegedly enlightened people to still practice warfare’s irrational barbarism, and see it as a rational means of solving problems.

In order to perpetuate this savage practice, enemies are always depicted as inhuman and depraved, so that people tolerate their being murdered. And those we train to do the killing suffer the most reprehensible attacks on their consciousness, to get them into battle with a desire to save their society from the demonic enemy.

And that is exactly how the American warrior is seen by the people he, or she, is sent to murder. There is nothing new about this, nor should it be shocking that some of our troops treat Iraqi prisoners as animals and sex toys. We have murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis in wars and with sanctions; how can we be surprised when our trained killers find pleasure in abusing those they have been taught are guilty of satanic evil, like 911?

The social perversion of war is made even worse by the present rulers of empire, fanatics intent on making the world safer for their form of biblical idiocy. This rapture crazed, chosen people cult is not only endangering the Islamic and Arab worlds, but putting the lives of all Americans in jeopardy. In these desperate circumstances, it is especially hypocritical to cluck about the sins of some troops, who only practiced the racist brutality that their political teachers preach, and their religious preachers teach.

While our murderous treatment of Iraqis and Palestinians creates more hatred for America, the political opposition to our court appointed DC dimwit is offering to “protect” Israel even more strongly than the present regime does. This deranged, immoral foreign policy, makes punishing troops in Iraq for their treatment of victims in prison as sensible as punishing pilots in Japan for their treatment of victims in Hiroshima.

Given the nasty anti-Semitic picture of the Arab world presented in our culture, can we really be surprised by our troops behavior? Even before, but especially since 911, our “civilization” has depicted and treated Arabs as a lower form of life. Of course, the daily outrages in Palestine and Iraq are accompanied by mealy-mouthed platitudes about democracy and peace, but if a judgmental Judeo-Christian god existed, it might unleash a holocaust of redemptive horror on people who could practice such blatant hypocrisy.

We don’t have to confront such a god in the physical world. But we do have to confront our moral responsibility and face the asinine practice of committing mass murder and accepting it as proper and decent, if conducted according to rules created by political degenerates. These are the creatures who sit in comfortable rooms and write laws about how atrocities are properly performed. They rule that It’s okay to depict people as enemy savages and shatter their bodies in a bombing raid, but for heavens sake, don’t mistreat them while they’re prisoners. That makes great sense, if you’re a homicidal moron.

The political and economic rulers who decide on making war are the real criminals, not the warriors they send to do the work. Once presented with an enemy who is trying to kill them, people will do what is necessary to survive. This, even without the depiction of enemies as being less than human, since those enemies will perform in exactly the fashion dictated by the rules of inhuman warfare. Meanwhile, the responsible criminals sit in safety and security as they appropriate funds for the mass murder being committed by pawns who perform their slaughter.

The degradation inflicted on the Iraqi prisoners has been taught these troops by those who knew what the affect would be. That consciousness management works on the general population; how could it not have an even greater impact on those we send to act out our perverted policy?

Many still believe we’re liberating the very people we’ve treated so barbarically for years, and that Saddam had a secret stash of weapons of mass destruction. Some of us accept these fables as we believe in gods who watch over us, personally, and to hell with everyone else. Or a god who has chosen our group for divine benefits, while consigning others to humanity’s dung heap.

But of all the superstitious swill we swallow, none is more destructive than the notion that mass murder can be committed in a morally legal and humane way.

The proof has always been there, but perhaps never so clearly as recent events make it. Politicians will exploit this for their own ends, but it is for the people to wake up and face reality. The problem is war, not warriors. The solution should be obvious. To humans, not barbarians.

Frank Scott is editor of Coastal Post in Bolinas, California. He can be reached at: email: frank@marin.cc.ca.us. Copyright (c) 2004 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.