torture photos from Iraq

I just finished reading the TIME magazine article regarding the torture photos taken by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and I don't know what to think. I wonder how this could go on and how people could stand by and let stuff like this happen and why they are taking pictures of it in the first place (to show the other prisoners as a warning perhaps...but still). Then I think of the whole "under the pressure of war, people will do strange things," argument, and am even more confused. I guess the biggest thing that upsets me is the whole idea that we've been operating under the notion of being an anti-terrorism country and that the "enemy" is out there and that it is our duty to go out and crush them. What do you do with something like this? When the alleged "good side" does the same thing the "enemy's side" did? I just was browsing some articles online and saw one comment from a person that said, "I don't think the pics are real. They look fake. Besides, even if they were real, the stuff in them is not nearly as bad as what the Iraq soldiers have been doing for years." Are you kidding? Does that make what we did right? I guess it just validates the whole extreme-philosophy. We constantly live to try and attribute extreme right or wrong tags to people or things, in order to excuse our own actions. This person's comment is a classic example. My only thought left is, these are people with real families who are suffering and as it looks right now, American soldiers are just as guilty as the "enemy." Where does that leave our country and cause in the war then???