@ Startup

Both.

It's pretty clear that most of these military guards were put up to this and constantly encouraged by those "civilian intelligence contractors" that the soldiers probably (and mistakenly) believed to be official CIA/DIA/FBI officers. They were actually "none of the above". Those "contractors" are not accountable to either the US military or the US government, although they clearly have the full support of the latter. These contractors only need to "drop a few names or threaten to make a few phone calls to certain politicians" to totally browbeat the military authorities into full submission. This is one of the big problems with this "privatization" movement that the Bush administration is so intent on using to replace just about every government functionary with these days, including many within the military itself. In this way the Bush administration doesn't have to acknowledge or explain anything that these people do, since they are not officially "US government employees" to begin with; they work for privately owned companies under government contract, which is an entirely different thing, especially since they are not operating on US soil anyway, and so are not subject to any US laws. And if things go wrong they make very convenient scapegoats, though I doubt very much that any of these "contractors" will ever be punished for anything: more likely they'll be handsomely rewarded, albeit very discreetly.

It's also pretty clear that many of the men and women in the military these days share the views of Americans here at home. The views that "the ends justify the means", that this is indeed a "Holy War", and that it's okay to become just as bad as the enemy in order to effectively combat them. They bring these attitudes with them from the society that they originally come from, of course. If people are fucked-up in the brain here at home, then our military will behave in a very fucked-up way overseas as well.

Bush's election (and the ongoing support for him now) is proof that there is something very, very wrong with America itself, these days. That's going to spill over into everything that we do, both here and abroad.

I sat and listened to Pat Robertson (of 700 Club fame) this morning rant about the "dangers of Islam". He says that there is no "peaceful solution" to the problem of Islam - and he makes no distinction at all between peaceful muslims and Islamic fundamentalists - they are all the same according to him. He believes that we must wipe them all off the face of the earth if we, ourselves, are ever to survive. He preaches that if we don't totally destroy Islam as soon as humanly possible then they will wipe us off the earth. This from a guy that ran for US President, and is one of Bush's staunchest political supporters. Robertson has an enormous following here in the US as an evangelical Christian "religious leader". Go figure. But that seems to be the way this entire country is headed these days, apparently.

With people like those (Bush and Robertson) in the political majority in this country these days what do you really expect from our military? Why should they be any different in their personal and political beliefs? They simply mirror the beliefs and attitudes of our entire society as a whole, and they behave accordingly.