So the Red Cross has a Report . . .

Up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested ''by mistake,'' according to coalition intelligence officers cited in a .::Red Cross report::. disclosed Monday.

Abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was widespread and routine, the report finds—contrary to President Bush's contention that the mistreatment ''was the wrongdoing of a few.''

Red Cross delegates saw U.S. military intelligence officers mistreating prisoners under interrogation at Abu Ghraib prison and collected allegations of abuse at more than 10 other detention facilities, according to the report.

.::Chicago Sun-Times::.

That's it! That is last bit of information necessary to determine that:

• There are more people involved in the human rights abuses than the half dozen Guard members put on the hotseat.
  
  
• Contrary to the lame excuses of the rabid right wing, US soldiers had no reason to direct their anger, or fear, at the detainees under their control, because the majority of them shouldn't have been arrested in the first place.
  
  
• Abu Ghraib is not an aberation; abuses were happening in other US controlled prisons and in other US instigated war zones in years past.
  
  
• The problem is not that the abuse was captured on camera and distributed all over the world, the problem is that it happened!
  
  
• The abuses could not have been as widespread without the ok of leaders in Washington.
  
  
• Violence begets violence.

I cannot understand why there are American citizens who deny that America (its government and its military) can be just as brutal and amoral as any other country. It doesn't help us grow (collectively) to be a better nation.

We cannot claim moral superiority, or the right to tell others how to live, and then try to excuse what happened at Abu Ghraib. Are there Americans who don't want to be better or to learn from our mistakes (egregious or slight) and the mistakes of others? Is acknowledging our own human frailties a sin?