The relatives of the Iraqi POW's at Abu Ghraib have stated that those American soldiers involved should be tried under Iraqi law and put to death for their crimes.

“This court will not bring justice, it’s nonsense. They should be tried by the Iraqis. According to Islamic law, they should be executed.” said Sharhabil Abdul-Rahman, brother of a POW housed at Abu Ghraib (and a former detainee himself).

Of course the Iraqi people are calling for blood.  Of course they see American Justice as insufficient and ineffective. They live in world where adultery will get you killed, where stealing will lose you a limb.  How can a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and allowances, a short period of incarceration in a cushy American military prison facility and a Bad Conduct Discharge be seen as anything less than a slap on the wrist to people who spend their lives living in fear of not only mortal physical violence but eternal punishment, should they fail to live up to the expectations of Islam and Muhammed? How can they possibly see any justice when our treatment of our own erroneous personnel is better than our treatment of their civilians?  As they themselves say, nothing short of execution is going to satisfy their sense of justice.

And therein lies the problem.  Because our cultures are so different, our expectations are very different. What seems like an extreme punishment to us, Americans, is nothing to them, Iraqis.  It wouldn't be so much of a stretch to  say that it's our religions that are so different.  We view them, Muslims as 'religious extremists' because their daily lives are goverened by their faith.  They live by the Koran, their judicial system is based upon Islamic values.  "What savages, what heathens, how uncultured" we say...

.but take a look at our lives in America.  We have 'In God We Trust' written on our currency.  Our judicial system is based on Judeo-Christian Values.  We have our children recite the Pledge Of Allegiance in school every morning, and our President, the leader of our country, invokes his God in public regularly.  Granted, we don't stone women to death for commiting adultery and we don't lop off hands for stealing...but we do execute murderers, and if the Christians in this country followed the word of the bible the way Muslims in Iraq followed the word of the Koran would we still be able to say we are so terribly different? 

So, nothing the US does in terms of judicial action against the POW abusers is going to be good enough for the Iraqis.  Unless we lead them out, naked, hooded, chained together, and execute them publicly the Iraqi public isn't going to be satiated.  They're going to still be crying for blood. It makes me wonder if this war is ever going to end. If we're ever going to be able to reconcile our differences.  Because, as close as we may seem upon inspection, we really are still worlds apart.