People have a habit of thinking that war crimes and other
atrocities are committed by monsters. But the thing is
that most are done by "good" people, who may lead totally
ordinary and lawful lives otherwise. Of course some can be
hidden sadists; by the percentage of sadists in usual
societies, the occupying powers have thousands of them
carrying their uniforms.

The relatives and friends of the American soldiers accused of
torture in Abu Ghraib claim them to be good persons, who
couldn´t never do such things. Probably the relatives of the
former Iraqi guards of Abu Ghraib prison would say the same.

If you will not be persecuted for committing atrocities and
especially if you are ordered to do them by your superiors,
then the line separating "good person" from "evil monster" is
easy to cross and you may not understand that you´re done so.

One thing that should be remembered about this scandal is
that this kind of behavior is not aberration; not by the usual
standards of modern warfare, and not by the standards of the
occupying powers in question.

Twenty years ago, both the United States and the Great Britain
were supporting among other cruel regimes the Baathist regime
of Iraq and trying to help the Khmer Rouge return to power in
Cambodza. Torturing prisoners and killing few of them is nothing
to regimes who have even supported genocides - even in Iraq -
so the loud condemnations by both US and British politicians are
really funny in their own way. True, disgusting crimes have been
committed, but far worse has been done in the past.