Lurid has a new anti-war piece up, with some very disturbing links.

Looking at those pictures of the humiliated and tortured Iraqi prisoners and their grinning American captors, two things came to mind. One was images of hunters and their kills: celebratory smiles, triumphant poses, anonymous, nonhuman flesh.

The other was the Stanford prison experiment.

These are not isolated incidents, the regrettable work of a few bad apples. These are snapshots of ongoing, insitutional brutality. They are happening in the context of a structure and heirachy that is giving its permission, even encouragement, to torture, sexual assault, and murder. And these are just the incidents that we get to hear about, remember. Imagine how many more stories go untold, how many more pictures don't get taken.