Before you read this story from page 10 of today's La Vanguardia, click on this AP story and read the whole thing. This is bad. Heads are already rolling among the officer corps, however, and six soldiers are facing court-martials. This is as it should be. Those soldiers accused of cruelty to prisoners should be tried and, if found guilty (and if the photos are legit, which they show every sign of being, they will be), given harsh sentences.

If they killed anybody, they should be tried for capital murder and, if found guilty, should receive at the minimum life imprisonment. Torture is a felony, and in Kansas if you kill anybody as a consequence of committing another felony you can be sentenced to death (e.g. if you rob a bank and during the robbery kill a guard). I would not object to the death penalty in this case, though I would argue the mitigating circumstance of having been in combat, if these soldiers had been.

Well, here we go with Andy Robinson from today's La Vanguardia.

More Iraqi prisoner sadistic torture evidence

Bush emphasizes in message difference with Saddam's cruelty

More proof of "sadistic" torture marks the anniversary of Bush's "mission accomplished". The most recent images of abuses suffered by Iraqi prisoners in the Anglo-American occupation's detention center are only the tip of the iceberg, according to documents obtained by the prestigious magazine "The New Yorker".

The prisoners of war and civilians held in the sinister prison of Abu Ghraib have been "sodomized with flourescent bulbs and broom handles", while their American jailers--members of the military police company 372 and the US secret services--broke chemical lamps and poured their liquid over their nude bodies, beath them with sticks and chairs, and threatened to rape them," according to the 53-page report written by the American Major General Antonio Taguba.

The report also includes two photos of dead prisoners who show signs of torture. One, with the number 153999, has his face "beaten in". Another, "whose bloody body was wrapped up in cellophane," was "beaten up so badly he died", according to the confession of one of the six Americans arrested as directly responsible for the abuses. There are also direct images of an empty room splashed with blood.

The evidence of torture throws another dark shadow ofer the anniversary of the premature victory speech made by President Bush on May 1, 2003, from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, in which he announced the "mission accomplished" in Iraq. Bush said yesterday in his radio speech that, despite the "important challenges" that still remain, there is "an abysmal difference with respect to Saddam's cruelty, since people "no longer disappear in prisons, torture chambers, and mass graves."

But the report about what happened until February 2004 inside Abu Ghraib--one of the most feared prisons during the dictatorship--made the President a liar. Now thousands of arrestees are locked up in this prison complex 30 miles from Baghdad, and "flagrant, indiscriminate, sadistic abuses", according to the report. "The majority of the arrestees are civilians," it continues, "victim of the almost indiscriminate roundups made by the Americans." 60% of the civilians detained in Abu Ghraib are no threat to the occupation forces," it adds.

All the abuses denounced are acts of torture, and "they are not isolated incidents", assured Amnesty International...

There are two and a half more paragraphs but you get the idea.

Now, let's compare the two stories. The AP story makes it clear that those soldiers who were involved are in extremely deep trouble. Three are already facing courts-martial, three more have been indicted, and seven more have been suspended from duties, which I assume is a temporary status before being either indicted or having their cases dismissed. Andy's story doesn't mention that.

The AP story doesn't say anything about prisoners being killed. Andy's story makes a big deal about two allegedly muredered prisoners.

The AP story says one prisoner was sodomized. Andy's story implies that this happened with some frequency.

The AP story does not imply that these cruelties and abuses were something widespread. Andy's story says they were.

Conclusion: If Andy's story is right, the Americans are little better than Saddam. This is just the tip of the iceberg and many more torture and murder cases will turn up. Should torture and murder committed by Americans have been a widespread practice in occupied Iraq, we should leave quickly, as fast as possible without turning the country over to some new dictator, because we have no business telling anybody how to behave if our army practices widespread torture and murder.

If the AP story is right, though, then this was just a few isolated incidents and those responsible will be punished. Also, this information came from a United States Army internal report, and investigation into abuses of prisoners was under way well before the photos hit the press. Which proves that the Army is not covering anything up and is trying to get to the bottom of the story.

Based on the AP's take on the story, I actually feel not that horrible. I am shocked and ashamed that American troops participated in such abuses of prisoners, but it looks to me like these were the actions of just a few psychopaths who somehow got into uniform, and that the American government and armed forces will not tolerate and openly condemn their behavior.

Based on Andy's take, the Marines are the SS, Abu Ghraib is Auschwitz, and Bush is Hitler.

We'll have to see which of the two turns out to be true.

Now read Seymour Hersh's piece in the New Yorker, the original source for both Robinson's and the AP's stories.