What frightens me the most about the recent pictures of Iraqi prisoners being maltreated by American soldiers is the fact that it occurred to the soldiers to have the prisoners do those things. I highly doubt that soldiers are explicitly taught anywhere "Okay, when you have some POWs, make them take off all their clothes and do pyramids with bags over their heads." The culture and mentality that would lead them to think of something like that would be enough to make me avoid all military people at all forever if I weren't doing so already for completely different reasons.

Americans should also be frightened that there are people responsible for their national security who are stupid enough to take pictures of themselves doing these things.