ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE NATIONAL GUARD There was an international ...

SHE-WOLF OF THE NATIONAL GUARD There was an international spasm of outrage and horror last week when CBS released a series of photographs depicting naked Iraqi prisoners being sexually humiliated and tortured by male and female American troops. CBS claims they sat on the pictures for as long as they could at the request of the Pentagon, but after two weeks, in danger of losing the scoop, they went ahead and presented them in a broadcast hosted by Dan Rather.

No one should be the least surprised by the revelation that our troops engage in torture. Our troops have been torturing enemy prisoners since 1945. Many of the more outlandish confessions at Nuremberg were reportedly extracted by the use of torture. Our troops have tortured prisoners (often civilians guilty of no more than attempting to organize unions) throughout South and Central America for decades. Our troops used torture in Vietnam. One good buddy of mine who served two tours over there personally vouched for the efficacy of nailing a prisoner's hands to a board and twisting the nails with pliers for the purpose of eliciting information.

Our troops instruct military personnel from other countries in the finer points of torture down at our "School of the Americas"—or whatever they're calling it these days, at Fort Benning in Georgia—but this is not news. Torture is commonplace in our own prison system. Capital punishment is considered torture by civilized countries, and America is clearly not a civilized country. Civilization requires thought and conscience.

What's different in this case is that the troops involved in these atrocities were stupid enough to photograph themselves doing it. This one butch little number that I'll call GI Jane looks especially amused, turned on even, as she mimics holding a gun with her hand and points it at a naked Iraqi man's genitals. I guess GI Jane was planning on bringing the photos home to pass them around at the next family barbecue.

Or maybe she was thinking about her employment opportunities when—if—she finishes her tour. Maybe she's smart enough to know that Wal-Mart is full and Mickey D's ain't gonna be hiring neither. She can adopt the moniker Ilsa, She-Wolf of the National Guard and get hired in that doublewide down at the edge of town that passes for a House of Domination. You know, the one where the local anti-abortion crusading Baptist preacher goes to get whipped while the girls ram dildos up his ass.

Those photos were probably just her idea of a ticket out of a dead-end minimum wage job at a cash register. Looks like she blew it.