I have a problem with the fact Salon keeps publishing things like this: "While we now know that the humiliation tactics employed in Abu Ghraib were first used in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Kennedy traces a shift in U.S. policy regarding abuse to the days after 9/11."

I'd been hearing about the US teaching "humiliating" torture to South and Central American regimes since the 1980s --- and I assume the reason I heard about it then was because I was in college then. We had speakers come & talk about things like giving prisoners only dead raw rats to eat. Does anyone remember the lobbying to close down the School of the Americas? Does anyone remember the army using loud music / sleep deprivation tactics on Noriega in a church in Panama under Reagan / Powell? (After bombing a residential neighborhood in an attempt to kill him, killing thousands of civilians -- check Human Rights Watch for documentation.)

In the 1980s there was some kind of vague defense in that the US were trying to get allied regimes to stop torturing prisoners "in ways that showed" (i.e. caused permanent damage), but the implication that the CIA had experience using these sorts of techniques was so frightening we always hoped these speakers were just crazy propogandists, even though they sounded coherent.

When Abu Graib got publicized, what changed was we could no longer hope those stories weren't true. Maybe this culture of evil had spread further into the military ranks so it became harder to hide. But it started way before 2001. It's high time we admit & remember our older victims too.

I feel like one of the characters in Get Your War On...

So, like, Cheney has to get PERSONALLY BOMBED AT to notice there might be a reason not to like his war?

I can't believe that just because India was more afraid of China than Russia, we had to support a theocracy through the whole cold war... one with nuclear weapons! I can't believe I'm rooting for a military dictator, but I really hope Musharraf can figure out a way to make Pakistan less of a mess.

Incidentally, speaking of Pakistan, a million people died during The Partition, when India as a complete state failed and they let people create a second country based on their religion. That bodes really well for Iraq too.

DJ -- thanks for your post -- I hope Salon (or someone) covers this so I have more than one person's word on it, but at least from the letters page I have my eyes out for it.

But anyway, I could be wrong, but I think Hilary is toast. Democrats have been trying to win on the B Clinton strategy for years now (support the war, be in the middle) & I don't think it's going to happen again. Why did she support Bush Jr's war? Because Bill guessed right supporting Bush Sr's war.

Hilary is a genius & a fine politician, but she is as over as Gore & Kerry. What I would like to see is her accepting that gracefully & becoming the next Ted Kennedy -- the next consumate legislator who holds firm for the ethical ideals while making bipartisan legislation work. She could be there another 40 years, and she could do way more good there even in the next 8 than in the president's office -- if she has a good president to work with.

Let's face it, the legislature needs more work than the executive, because something horribly wrong has happened that should never be permitted to happen again. We don't want an autocracy. So let the brilliant young idealist take over the executive / figurehead role, and please, please, please lets have some great minds & money get to work in the legislature on fixing the system so the checks and balances can't get unbalanced again.

And wouldn't she be happier if she could be the true midwestern liberal she is? We're just looking for a hand in the snow :-)