Re: I don't thnk I am on any particular "horse"
Yep, they are baby killers, just like my countries armed forces have been in the past. Some of my countrymen
WRT the shaking head constituting defiance: so, for that, he gets tortured to death? Nice to know what passes for norms of justice down there. Let's look at that again... he was chained up to hang by his arms from the ceiling, and then the soldier in question started pounding on his knee with a baton, and did so around thirty times. Just trying to hood him is against the law... and if there is any international law that can hold that name, it's the geneva conventions. Hanging him up from the ceiling goes past abuse and into torture territory all by itself, again according to the geneva conventions. Finally, bashing him repeatedly in the knee with what basically amounts to a baseball bat is torture by anybody's account. But since he was defiant, it's all OK... esp. since it wasn't being inflicted solely to cause pain, but more to correct his behaviour, a la your new Attorney General's paper about what does and doesn't constitute legal justifications for force that he wrote a couple of years back. According to the norms of justice espoused in that little exercise in post facto rationalisation, what this guy did isn't a crime at all.
The truly whacked out thing about this is that most Americans seem to be completely unaware of how badly these guys are dragging your country's name through the mud.
I hate to break the news to you Arkadiy, but the US military IS being used in JUST such a way, and has been for about three years. I might as well add that some elements of my country's armed forces are ALSO being used in JUST such a way, and in the same place, and for about the same amount of time... but at least that was pointed out then (front page coverage on the Globe and Mail, actually) and is revisited from time to time... but it still doesn't prevent the odium from attaching itself to my country's leaders as well. In fact, in some ways they're worse; they're not leading, they're just following along doing what they're told in this matter.
And you know what? I was here for Reagan, and Reagan was bad; just ask a Nicaraguan or a Guatemalan about Reagan, and take a look at how his administration stepped around your constitution's provisions limiting executive power. Reagan's administration created a lot of suffering, both in America (read about the CIA using the crack cocaine market in LA to fund their operations in Central America sometime) and abroad, but Bush is a LOT worse than Reagan ever was, not least because the legislative branch has completely abdicated their responsibilities in the interests of accruing ever greater rewards.
