Reply #27: If

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

they had kept the prisoners awake, as ordered (according to your information), and kept them naked, as ordered (again according to your information), and done nothing else, we very probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

The problem is that they went way beyond any orders they were given. It is laughable to think that these people didn't realize that humiliation and rape weren't wrong.

Personally, I think they were given specific ideas on what to do before they even went overseas. I'm basing this on a very unscientific sample of one Guardsman/MP who used to work with my husband. He has not be deployed overseas as of yet, but while at the shop, he'd tell his fellow workers his 'plans' for those 'heathen Muslims who worship that idol'. He went into specifics, and what he planned to do was offensive. Not physically painful, but very offensive to Muslims. Since his knowledge of Islam was obviously limited (Allah is Arabic for God, and idolitry is forbidden in Islam), my take on this was that someone somewhere put the notions as to what to do into his head. I asked my husband if he'd asked the fellow where he'd gotten those ideas, but he hadn't. We keep a very low profile and don't use our Muslim names, literally in fear of our lives. I may be paranoid, but personally I feel that at least some of the enlisted people who did these terrible things may very well have done it out of hate of Islam that they picked up somewhere in the US.