"the old rules no longer applied because this was a different world. "

[sabra]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-08-17T182231Z_01_SCH766146_RTRIDST_0_USREPORT-IRAQ-MEMOIR-DC.XML

U.S. soldier chronicles abuse, hard times in Iraq

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops was widespread and not limited to the high-profile cases at Abu Ghraib prison, according to a former soldier who participated in an interrogation that she said "crossed a line."

Kayla Williams, 28, a former sergeant with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and the author of a new book, said soldiers interrogating a naked Iraqi asked her to humiliate him. She also saw fellow soldiers throwing lit cigarettes at him and hitting him in the face.

"It's one thing to make fun of someone and attempt to humiliate him. With words. That's one thing. But flicking lit cigarettes at somebody -- like burning him -- that's illegal," Williams writes in "Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army," which hits U.S. bookstores September 5.

....

Williams wrote that she chose not to participate in subsequent interrogations but that other soldiers later told her that "the old rules no longer applied because this was a different world. This was a new kind of war."

[tk2kewl]

1. I'm gonna use that excuse from now on...

stopped for speeding: "too bad copper, everthing has changed since 9-11"

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Reuters has the story; who all is running with t?

One more scratch in the Bushco teflon.

[Poiuyt]

3. That's their rational for doing whatever they want without regard to laws

Must be nice to be able to make up your own rules as you go along.

[sabra]

4. it's a "new kind of war"