Juan Cole makes a case for getting U.S. ground troops out of Iraq -- without regard for the number of U.S. casualties or the deceptive nature of the original rationale for war. The army should go, he says, because it's decreasing stability, not increasing it -- and we're "brutalizing" our troops in the process.

Going to the second point are new allegations of persistent cruelty toward Iraqi prisoners, the notion that Abu Ghraib was an anomaly is looking more and more like fantasy.

"On their day off people would show up all the time," the sergeant continues in the HRW report. "Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration you show up at the PUC tent. In a way it was sport. The cooks were all U.S. soldiers. One day a sergeant shows up and tells a PUC to grab a pole. He told him to bend over and broke the guy's leg with a mini Louisville Slugger that was a metal bat. He was the cook."

(note: "PUC"="Persons Under Control", i.e. prisoners).

Can Christopher Hitchens answer this by continuing to change the subject to Israel/Palestine?

(For what it's worth, Cole also makes the case for a maintaining some military presence in Iraq; just not large-scale ground forces.)

The Juan Cole stuff comes to us via the indispensible Dr. Green, by the way.