AT THE COURT-MARTIAL TRIAL OF CHARLES GRANER in Fort Hood, Texas, Graner's attorney compared the human pyramids of naked Iraqi prisoners to what cheerleaders do at football games; and he compared the footage showing naked Iraqis being put on leashes to parents putting a leash on their toddler in public places.

Using naked and hooded detainees to make a human pyramid was much like what cheerleaders "all over America" do at football games, the lawyer, Guy Womack, argued. Putting naked prisoners on leashes was much like what parents in airports and malls do with their toddlers: "They're not being abused," the lawyer told the jury of 10 soldiers, "they're being kept in control."

There is no way to adequately express my sense of disgust and shame -- disgust at the depths to which it is possible for the United States military to sink in their attempt to defend the indefensible; and shame as an American, for my country. When it has actually come to this -- that a military lawyer can compare forcing Iraqi prisoners to strip naked and pile up on each other's bodies to a cheerleader's gymnastic routine; or that putting a dog leash around a grown man's neck and forcing him to walk around while a U.S. soldier holds the other end of the leash, can be compared to connecting a cord between a parent and a small child to keep the child from getting separated or lost in crowded public places -- then I really feel like this country has sunk into some kind of moral swamp that is sucking us in to our spiritual destruction. THIS is the moral calibre of a country that dares to say it is liberating and bringing democracy to an oppressed people? We should be ashamed of ourselves.