"there is a difference ( as there should be ) between a society which attempts to strike out such behaviour, and punish those guilty after conviction ! And those societies where it is acepted behaviour.

Gareth is quite right here - the question is, which category does this society fall into? The fact that charges have been brought, as a result of a whistleblower's actions, doesn't settle that question.

What I strongly suspect will happen is that the soldiers involved will be offered a deal to plead guilty to reduced charges and be given token penalties, which will mean that there will be no proper trial, which might reveal embarrassing information about the context in which all this happened, and open the question whether what happened was seen as "accepted behaviour" by those higher up, rather than merely being an aberration at relatively junior level.

As someone said up the thread, it seems certain that one thing to come out of this will be that there will be stringent efforts to ensure that there won't be cameras in situations like this. And definitely not in Guanatanamo Bay, of course.