I didn't think it could. I had hoped somewhere, despite all available evidence, that maybe we had already seen all the way to the bottom of the pit. I was wrong.
Fair warning: these are very disturbing, horrible, NSFW photos. They're from a presentation by Philip Zimbardo at yesterday's TED conference in Monterey, and have been published by Wired magazine. There's also a link to a video of his presentation (which I haven't watched yet, as I'm on a slow connection this morning).
The photos are here.
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo's talk has also been covered by Wired: How Good People Turn Evil, From Stanford to Abu Ghraib. This is the same researcher who did the famous 1971 Stanford "prison" experiment; he's involved here because he was an expert witness for one of the defendants in the Abu Ghraib case.
I was, and remain, unconvinced that this matter can be fully investigated, and justice administered, by the United States government. It should be placed in the hands of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, whose charter includes prosecution of crimes against humanity (which covers torture). But the United States, after signing the UN treaty which created it in 1998, repudiated that signature in 2002, thereby (if my limited understanding of the law is correct) exempting its citizens from its jurisdiction.
The possibly-apocryphal words of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto seem apropos this morning: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." It's difficult for me to conceive of anything which would do more to inflame anti-American sentiment not just among terrorist organizations, not just in the Middle East, but globally. Those outraged by this may well ask -- and with good reason -- "What else is there?" and refuse to believe any answer that denies the existence of more.
And while I'm reluctant to make this a partisan issue -- because as Americans, we are all shamed by this -- I think, given Senator John McCain's recent vote, it would be appropriate to show these photos to him and ask him why he, of all people, voted in favor of torture.
UPDATE 1, 8 AM EST:Pariah Dog has pointed out that these photos aren't new. My apologies; I didn't know. Wired's headline is "Disturbing New Photos From Abu Ghraib", so I surmised that they were new -- and I couldn't recall seeing them before (although as I'm finding out this morning, I clearly haven't seen them all) so I took them at their word. I take full responsibility and apologize to everyone for this error; it wasn't intentional, and I'll try not to repeat it. (I've also removed the word "BREAKING" from the title, because with this in mind, that tag is misleading.)
UPDATE 2, 1 PM EST:Caneel has pointed out that Talking Points Memo has stated that these are new photos as well, but it appears to me that they're restating Wired's claim -- which was my mistake. So I'm going to stick what appears to be the consensus opinion of folks here, who have obviously had the courage to look at many more pictures than I have, that these are not new. I apologize again to everyone for the confusion I've caused today.
UPDATE 3, 2 PM EST:distraught has very kindly written a diary entry on this: Wired's "new" Abu Ghraib pics -- white phosphorus ??? which addresses the question of whether any of these photos are new, or versions of other ones, or similar to other ones (e.g., slightly different angle). I recommend reading it for a much more informed viewpoint than mine.