Boy, the news that American troops have done some pretty nasty things to Iraqi prisoners has been a bombshell over here. First things first, no ifs ands or buts. The American armed forces are investigating the soldiers involved in this incident and they will be disciplined. Several officers' careers will be ruined and the individuals who appear in the photos will undoubtedly spend some time in the stockade. If anything less happens--if there's an attempt to sweep this under the rug--I will be outraged.

This behavior is not typical of American troops and an example must be made in order to demonstrate that we do not tolerate the cruel treatment of prisoners.

Now, what these people did was psychologically torture and humiliate Iraqi prisoners. Comparisons to Saddam Hussein's torture chambers are ridiculous, and accusations that more than a handful of US troops are bad eggs, rogue elements, cruel bastards, whatever you want to call them, are ludicrous. The claims made by the person in charge, Sergeant Chip Frederick, that he had not been given proper instruction from above on how to interrogate prisoners are ridiculous. Gee, buddy, you ask them questions, and if they don't answer, you ask them the questions again. Somebody will talk eventually. You do not blindfold them, put them on a beam, put electric cables in their hands, and tell them if they fall they'll be electrocuted, and then be dumb enough to photograph the whole thing. One would think any idiot could figure this out. Those excuses don't wash.

Just a comment. This guy's name is Chip Frederick. Now, if there's ever a fratboy name, this is it. I will bet you ten-to-one this electric-cables stunt and this posing of prisoners in simulated homosexual scenes are techniques Chipper picked up during his fraternity years. Both of them sound like typical fraternity hazing crap. My old high school classmate, Walt Neidner, who was in Sigma Nu at the University of Kansas, can serve as witness that at his fraternity they did something very similar to the electric cables, and I've heard several people say that they had to simulate homosexual acts as part of initiation.

(Note to fraternity members: Yeah, yeah, I know, 99% of you would never do anything like what Chipper did, and of course you're right, you wouldn't. It's no more fair to say all frat guys are bad because of what Chipper did than it is to say that all American soldiers are bad because of it. During my time in college I never heard of any real fraternity atrocities; once the SAEs got busted for putting somebody in the hospital by forcing him to drink, another time they almost got kicked off campus for stealing cable TV, and the most notorious thing that happened was one of their pledges ordered a pizza and then attacked the black girl who delivered it. Of course, they kicked the guy out, and he was arrested and jailed. That was about it. That and the Acacias were forced to disband, I think by the national headquarters, and they wrecked the house, which cost a whole lot of money. These were both loser fraternities at KU during my time, at least. Those guys were not cool, they were jerks. Most of the other frats were considerably higher-toned and more respectable.)