Read other letters about this article
I wonder how many of the letter writers that are shocked, shocked about yet another release of Abu Ghraib photos have ever worked in a prison, psychiatric hospital, homeless shelter, on a police beat, or even in an urban public high school? For those people living in Candyland, who have never even watched an episode of COPS, you need to know that sometimes it becomes neccessary to get unhappy people to do things that they really, REALLY don't want to do. Surprisingly, this is never very pleasant, and sometimes the unhappiness that is in those unhappy people rubs off on normally rational, decent folks, especially when they are far from home in a war zone. Henchmen for a ruthless, totalitarian regime that used poison gas on its own people and started wars with its nieghbors can be especially "unhappy", and it might be difficult to get them to go along with the program of a military force that just locked them up in a prison where THEY used to hold other folks.