My reaction was crude and inhumane. While joking and laughing about such serious business may be all-too-human, it's also pretty counter-productive from the standpoint of trying to get behaviour like this to stop.

What those soldiers did over there was wrong, and in no small way. Worse, it's apparently been going on for months now and was known about pretty high up the command chain. The Red Cross approached the military repeatedly trying to get it stopped, but to no avail. Reports were written and ignored.

Alcaray points out that this sort of thing IS torture as defined by the Geneva Convention. The media is not at fault. The whistleblowers are not at fault. Allowing crimes to be perpetrated in the name of America is what's wrong here. Winking or laughing at it is damn near just as wrong. I'm ashamed I had that reaction.