Reply #40: Exactly.

[ProSense]

As far as who should be punished, it starts at the top, whoever was involved in making torture a policy should be tried for war crimes.

I will reiterate a point above. There are thousands and thousands of foot soldiers following orders at any given time, it's unrealistic to think that they should be or can be held accountable.

I've never been in battle, but even in training as a soldier the thought of limits (to following orders) does cross one's mind. Whether it's with a weapon in hand, live of dummy ammo, night or day, you don't have much time to contemplate direct orders. It could be a simple order to wade through water where you know there could be snakes. Imagine the anxiety if you are terrified of snakes? That's a simplistic analogy, but for a soldier on the battlefield or anyone following orders during a time of war, it becomes complicated and potentially deadly.

Leaders who betray their soldiers or anyone directly reporting them by involving them in crimes are despicable. When the betrayal rises to the level of war crimes, they are evil. They should be prosecuted. There is no justification for not holding them accountable. None.

The Bush administration time in office represents a horrific and tragic episode in U.S. history, for all the lies, devastation, torture and death. No one could have ever imagined that this would be our collective destiny in 2000.