http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/05/07/soldier.charged/index.html. Female private charged with abuse of prisoners. What a weak-minded little fool she is. Just because her lover told her to torture prisoners, she did it with a smile on her face. Ick! Of course, as her sister pointed out, she?s only human. Yes, she is....a bad human. Obviously pathetic weakness runs in her family....I don?t care if she was a close relative, I?d be leading the charge to string her up. Especially if she was a close relative, I'd be absolutely ashamed to be related to such a snivelling, cowardly, pathetic little worm. "She obeys orders" indeed....gee, it was an order, I have no personal responsibility in the matter.... That's the oldest excuse in the book, and I think we should institute special penalties for anyone banal, trite or stupid enough to ever use it again. We all know how well it worked at the Nuremburg Trials. (Don't anyone get all huffy on me, I'm commenting on the banality of the excuse, and not making any attempt to compare to the degrees of evil involved. Of course, evil is almost always banal, isn't it...)

Yes, I'm being judgmental, but people like infuriate me. She's what I call "petty evil". The sort of evil kept in line by threats of punishment rather than any kind of moral concern. As soon as that threat seems to go away (I say seems, because I hope she gets the maximum possible penalty, and given the way the army needs a scapegoat right now, I imagine the chances are strong that these torturing idiots will get the maximum sentence. Now if only we can go after their officers...) they act out in bizarre and stupid ways. Absolutely loathsome. Must crack down, and crack down hard, and not just make a token effort of punishing the offenders (guess which one I think will actually happen).

I hate stupid, petty evil people.