unbelievable.

from AMERICAblog, my hero as far as this story is concerned:

They just canceled the entire investigation of the scandal involving US soldiers allegedly trading death pics from Iraq for access to online porn. And the reasons the military is giving for canceling the investigation are simply outrageous. Get this.

The Army Criminal Investigation Command in Iraq conducted the preliminary inquiry within the past week but closed it after concluding no felony crime had been committed and failing to determine whether U.S. soldiers were responsible for the photos and whether they showed actual war dead, Army officials said. Col. Joe Curtin, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said there currently was no formal investigation into the matter.

as john points out farther on in the post, the soldiers shouldn't be tough to identify. they're posing in a lot of the pictures, and their faces, complete with hi-mom grins, are plain as day. my biggest question is, how does it make sense to close an investigation because preliminary inquiries failed to make any concrete determinations? i can't tell you how troubled i am by all of this.