Before US invtervention in Iraq, in prisons like Abu Ghraib prison were the sites of Saddam’s most brutal treatment of prisoners. He would cut hands off, feed people to wood chippers feet first, practice horrible torture and abuse.
What a few ( soldiers did, however horrible it is, doesn’t even compare to what Saddam did as well as what that culture understands as abuse and torture.
Do they deserve compensation? Hell no, an apology from our government, sure, already done… We hold ourselves to a much higher moral standard then the rest of the world, and when a few soldiers don’t uphold that high moral standard, which still remained much higher then some parts of the world including Iraq, then its a scandal? That makes no sense… We are the ones defining the rules, and when those that break those rules, ie the soldiers involved, are dealt with accordingly. What they did was wrong, but it was isolated and paled in comparision to what the Iraqis under Saddam did to prisioners.
We are one of only a few countries that systematically upholds at every level in our military the Geneva Convention. We are leaders when it comes to protecting human rights, and yet the media makes it look like we are the bad guys once again. Take a look at what other countries are doing to their prisoners and their methods of interegation / torture. It makes what a few soldiers did, look like a ride at Disney!