Is that the Soldiers who were guarding the detainee's were a Unit of Military Police from a National Guard unit.

There training has NOT been questioned.

The schooling of the Geneva Convention is given to all Military inductee's, without exception.  It is clear and a test is given.

What we do not know:

Is that orders for mistreatment of detainee's came from the military hierarchy.  I think that your hatred has warped your thinking.  That an order would come down the channels to sodomize a teenage boy with a nightstick is incredulous and gives proof of your inane bias.

Furthermore, you failed to offer any useful information as to how these young Soldiers could commit such acts and seemingly find gratification in their acts!  Base morals would of had them refusing such orders if they indeed were following orders.

I would suspect a few things.

First, they were probably not well trained in the aspects of the Geneva convention.

Then, they were probably given the impression that these were not enemy combatants who were subject to the Geneva convention. They were probably lead to believe these were criminals and thugs, not soldiers (and they probably were cirminal elements, but my understanding is that they might still have been classified as combatants).

I would also suspect that there was an "implication" that these "prisoners" needed to be broken for intelligence purposes.

I don't think specific instructions were given on exactly what actions were to be taken, and these soldiers-not experienced in psychological warfare and iterrogation-wnet too far, thinking they were performing their duties.

I also understand that most of this crap occurred during one night.

It was wrong, they should have known better, since obviously one of them did know better and reported it. The commanding officer at the prison was responsible, just as the captain of a ship is responsible for the actions of his crew and vessel.

There may well be procedural issues that need correction-how do you walk that fine line between extracting information and guarding prisoners? I don't consider all the actions to be "torture", I do accept the fact that the humiliation tactics are a form of abuse.

I grew up in the 50's & 60's.  I lived and live in Southern California, just for reference.  During that era women's rights were not really an issue.  Many women, my mother for example worked in factories during WWII and wanted to return to homemaking, not all, but by far the great majority of them.  When women's rights became an issue, the country adapted.

The public elementary schools I attended were integrated, whites, Asians, Latino's, Blacks and some Indians.  We all played together, race wasn't an issue.  My dad worked in the aerospace industry which was equally integrated.  At our table on any given Sunday you would find people of all races.  When racial discrimination became an issue the country adapted.

When I was 9 years old, 1959, my grandfather, a white, Irish, Roman Catholic had a cross burned in his front yard in Anaheim, California.  The community erupted, with the help of the "Baptist Church" the culprits, members of the local KKK were arrested and spent a year in the county jail for it.  The Baptist Church is where the wacko's of the KKK were born, but it wasn't the "norm" or even "remotely acceptable" behavior for Baptists, just an anomaly.

I point these things out because much of what you have been lead to believe was NOT UNIVERSAL!  Although I don't pretend to say that racism and glass ceilings didn't exist, it didn't seem too rampant or tolerated in my community.

I have an uncle who lives in Sneads, Florida (12 miles from Georgia and 13 miles from Alabama), pretty much the deep south.  He' s 80 and has lived there my whole life.  His two next door neighbors have been the same black families for the last 50 years, they care deeply for each other and always have.  When we vacationed there, I played with their children, we are still friends today, and they consider my Uncle and Aunt as family.  

Maybe it has to do with my parents being first generation Americans from Irish parents, but bigotry was never allowed in our home.  

I think that it might be a good exercise for you to look at the newsreels from that era of racial strife and look at how many WHITE faces you see in the demonstrations.  When the injustice was put before the American people, they stood for righteousness.  Those who stood to block the progress were the Democrats in Congress and the Senate, check it out!

One last thing, laws can't change the human heart, where there is racism, laws can only somewhat control it.  I think that the majority of Americans were not racist, only went along with the status quo (wrongly), but when faced with their own errors, they acted according to their core beliefs.  The result of that change is the LEAST racist, MOST open society in the history of mankind.