Circumcision - its effects

[no_escape]

no_escape, I *do* have to play devils advocate here a bit.  There were times, from (basically) pre-history to as late as the early part of the last century where people were quite often logistically incapable of keeping a standard of cleanliness that we now take for granted (unless you live in the middle of nowhere, like I do!) I think even those who are intactivists educate parents to the need for personal hygiene.  Disease, to include genital disease ran rampant among people even just 200 years ago. (Witness the flu epidemic of 1918 that killed approximately 10% of American and no, I'm not blaming that epidemic on the presence of circumcision) Circumcision as a prophylactic measure was immeasurably better than the alternatives.

To turn the table on you, is it better that a child be circumcised or to experience Balanitis, HIV or cancer - all of which occur at a higher rate among the uncircumcised that the circumcised male.
What I found most horrific about the incident you describe is not the circumcision itself but that the child was so unprepared for it in any means.  With few exceptions circumcision is a requirement to take part in the community of Islam.

The so called medical benefits of circumcision are not supported by the data. An Oxford grad student tackles the medical aspect very thoroughly in this article:

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/201...-medicine/

There's also a short video from a Canadian doctor addressing those claims of reduced chance of disease:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi6A7wP7dKw

Answering you questions:
No, it's not 'okay' to commit a cruel act on another (whether they can remember it or not). In many societies (some even today), because of child death, children were not regarded as people until they had reached 3 - 5 years.
Expanding on that, however, beyond the moral issues you bring to the table are also the religious issues, if one believes firmly that circumcision (as much as baptism) is a requirement for salvation are you and I the people to tell them they're wrong?

I don't believe religious tolerance should extend to allowing people to violate children's bodies. In the West, we have no qualms about calling female circumcision mutilation, and making it an illegal practice. These people who insist that male genitals must be cut due to religion are free to cut their own when they are of age. Until that time, religion is not a free pass to do irreversible, non medical surgery on a healthy child.