And based on the known evidence Iran's treatment of its current detainees is nowhere near as atrocious, though bad and wrong, as America has treated foreign detainees within its custody.

Huh? You always push it one step too far. You were okay until this sentence. When are you going to learn, as Cervantes said (according to Jack Kerouac), "Comparisons are odious." Do you mean these two American hiker detainees? Do you mean in general in all Iranian prisons? Do you mean all American detainees? The worst treatment they've received? Do you mean numbers?

Because prisoners die from beatings in Evin prison with some regularity, and there are allegations of graves where some of the opposition protesters have been buried quietly, and allegations of extreme isolation and incommunicado detention, and allegations of beatings, and some of those allegations were made on the floor of the Iranian parliament, allegations of beatings made by an MoP about the treatment of his own son.

That the behavior of the U.S. has diminished, or even reduced to nothing, America's moral standing on such issues is a good point. That we are not assured that the U.S. has ended such treatment, even further, or the numbers, even further. That it somehow absolves the other governments in the world is not, nor do comparators make the treatment documented elsewhere some kind of a lie. And not having moral standing does not mean that the U.S. should not comment on human rights, or plea for compassion for its citizens.

I'm not sure what impression Seymour Hersh is trying to make with his article. If the impression is that the Pakistanis think that American access to their nuclear weapons is about as likely as Pakistani access to American nuclear weapons and that's the way it should be, that works. If the impression is that the Zardari government is an American puppet, or that we need to be very afraid of the Taliban becoming popular in the Army, or that we need to be very afraid that a Muslim uprising in the Army will hand nuclear weapons off to al Qaeda, or that Pakistani instability is both caused by and misunderstood by Americans, then, sorry, I don't buy (and don't need to either since Mr. Hersh was unable to make that case).

The assessment of both the Taliban relationship to the Pakistani government (esp. Mullah Omar) and of the primary motivators of Pakistani discontent with their government don't seem too accurate, perhaps because of an underlying assumption that it is America that is the major destabilizing force there. It isn't. The major destabilizing force there is corruption and an oppressive zamindari system, and courts that are unresponsive and slow.

The point is that the Green movement in Iran was just one more of the seemingly endless series of CIA attempts to roll governments that refuse to be slaves to the Empire.

Nice. And your proof of this? Don't people in any other country of the world have the abilities of intelligence and agency when you get into your CIA/Imperialist conspiracy cups? That's some mighty strong kool-aid, almost as strong as the neocon brand.

Then let's get rid of the stupid artifacts of poll trending, exit polls, and presidential debates here in America. After all, if a single poll held near the beginning of the campaign season before the debate is the determiner of the validity of an election, then there is no need for the debates, no need to establish trends to determine pools of likely voters, and above all, stop that silly exit polling in places like Ohio and Zimbabwe for voting irregularities. It isn't meaningful if a non-profit does a poll in, say, July.

Oh there he goes with his details again.

There could hardly be anything less universal than the opponents of the extremists. The Iranian opposition, like the Thais, like the Pakistanis, like the Taiwanese, like the Kenyans, like every properly functioning constitutional monarchy, constitutional theocracy, or constitutional democracy, go to the streets in large numbers, even in the face of police or even army action, when they believe they were inappropriately robbed by "election irregularities".

In America, however, the opposition of extremists let the press tell them that protesting a usurped election result was an extremist thing to do, so they all watched football instead.

I haven't had time to go through the comments yet. I heard on KQED this morning on a call in show (probably the second hour of SF Forum) that there is a waiting list in the military/VA for psychological/psychiatric services of 1 million people, many for combat related stress. I also personally know people who have had problems with secondary PTSD (from counseling people with severe psych problems spec. torture). So instead of asking why this happened, wouldn't the more relevant question be, "How soon will it happen again?"

BTW, aeschylus you could perhaps write Sen. Daniel Inouye about your concerns on Muslims being banned from the military. He might have some insight, don't you think?