Yesterday, Donald Rumsfeld called the prison abuse "totally un-American." I think the abuse is quite American.

We've had cops rape prisoners with plungers, high school football players shove pine cones up the asses of freshmen, female high school seniors beating up and smearing shit on underclassmen, numerous incidents of college hazing. You might say, "Well, those are high school and college kids." Well, many soldiers are college-age kids that are just out of high school. Here is another fine example of humiliation from this past week.

Humiliation is a big part of our culture, especially in a law enforcement setting. Imagine all of the prisoner abuse that either goes unreported or ignored.

I'm just saying that while the pictures from Iraq are disgusting and shocking (at first), it's not really all that surprising. What is surprising is the stupidity of the soldiers that were sending the pictures to each other via email. But along with humiliation, stupidity is another prevalent trait of this fine country.