US troops kidnapped Iraqi general Abed Mowhoush's children. When he showed up, trying to get his children back, the troops beat him until bruises and welts covered his body, stuffed him into a sleeping bag bound with a cord, sat on his chest, and covered his mouth. He died from suffocation.

The Army convicted an interrogator of negligent homocide. The offense for torturing a general who had every right to POW status to death? $6,000 and 60 days confined to home, office, and church. No jail time. Not even a dishonorable discharge.

And this jerk asked for another sleeping bag the day after he killed the general, hoping to use this technique on others.

The toxic coalition of calvinist theocrats and neo-imperialist kleptocrats who put the Bush clique in power have used the term 'moral equivalence' as a pejorative to defend their crimes for years. Why do we let them? When I went to sunday school, we were taught that murder is murder, kidnapping is kidnapping, torture is torture, and theft is theft. It didn't make a jot of difference if you were black or white, american or chinese, christian, muslim, buddhist, jew or whatever. If you did equal crime, you earned equal punishment, because you were equally guilty.

But that's not how Bush and his supporters think, is it? As far as they're concerned, they can do anything they want, anything at all, because they are "RIGHT". They can torture, murder, lie, steal..., because they're better than anybody else. Their 'God', and their overstuffed wallets, told them so. I obviously never read the part of the Bible that relates how the ten commandments were only meant to be applied to people you don't approve of...

We have let them get away with it by failing to defend the concept that everybody is equal in matters of law and morality, which is all that 'moral equivalence' means. Don't let 'justice' become a cussword!

An episode of the now-defunct FX show "Over There" plays out this exact scenario. An Iraqi insurgent is captured, but refuses to talk. The surprisingly cerebral American commander comes up with a brilliant strategy: bring in his sister and threaten to turn her over to the Pakistanis. There's a terrible moment where the commander uses inuendo and outright threat to explain to the prisoner how his sister will be raped and tortured. Ultimately, the prisoner gives up what the Americans want. The show does a pretty effective job of questioning whether what happened was a "fair" or "moral" tactic.

I have absolutely no idea whether or not this script was based in reality, but it's interesting that the writers came up with it at least a year before this news broke.

By the way, if you've never seen "Over There" it's worth checking out.

Next will they grab bin Laden's wannabe pop-singer niece as familial leverage? You know, the one pictured posing languidly in a bathtub not long ago in a Salon article?

What an honorable country we have. I feel a reality show coming on.

I must say I'm disappointed that this story has gotten so few replies, and that those replies aren't full of complete outrage. Don't Americans care what their troops do to foreign civilians? Do you wonder why the rest of us sometimes come across as 'anti-american' when we're outraged that you don't seem at all concerned for our basic legal and human rights?

Let's ask ourselves a question. Why do you think the US has such a bad rep around the world? Do you think it's because we 'hate your freedoms'? Or do you think it's because your elected governments and your military act as if the rest of us were chattel?

I guess releasing 'bad' news just before a weekend works...

I am just too shocked. I don't know what to say.