During the war in Iraq we have taken many prisoners. These prisoners are being held by the us military. They are prisoners of war which means they are protected by the Geneva treaty. The prisoners are being mistreated & morally demeaned in multiple ways. The us soldiers are violating the rules set down by the Geneva convention. This mistreatment can and will cause a lot of negative feeling toward the united states. It in a way is a sick kind of propaganda. The images are all over TV and the Internet. However, images of dead American soldiers coming home have been banned from the media. This is to prevent the popularity of the war to drop. The horrid mistreatment of prisoners may have some bad outcomes. The credibility of the us military may be lost. The enemy could retaliate in to major ways. One, they could do the exact same thing to our men, their prisoners. Two, they could capitalize on the fact that the do not mistreat their prisoners. This would in turn make the look like the bigger man and possibly less of a threat. There are a few explanations for our troops behavior out there. Many physiologists say that the reason is triggered by stress or a trauma. The idea is that when a soldier is away from home for an extended period of time doing something stressful the person may begin to start feeling excessive aggression, or depression like symptoms. The effected will sometimes “snap” and go temporarily insane. This would explain the behavior of out troops. However it does not excuse it. The mistreatment of prisoners is causing a lot of ruckus in the world. Not to mention we are breaking the rules of war. The military is losing credibility as those few seem to be representing the military as a whole. This problem needs to get solved and dealt with before it becomes out of hand.
