Never bring your copy of "I'm OK, You're OK" to a knife fight.

Heh, the funny thing is such tactics were NOT needed to stop 9/11. Reread the testimony of Coleen Rowley. The government had plenty of actionable intelligence prior to the attack.

You also talk a lot about 'I will not let' and 'I will not permit.' You don't possibly think that engaging in a debate in the letters section of a website where 80-90 percent of the people here dismiss you as some kind of monster is doing your cause any good? You seem to enjoy wasting your time here or are you paid to do it?

This guy spams the alternet boards as well. To all: NEVER cut and paste that link - it will release all manner of spyware on your computer and compromise it.

For some reason, alternet has never been able to stop him, so forewarned is forearmed.

As for the subject at hand, having been near the spooks as a PSYOP operative nothing about this report surprises me including the redactions.

My theory on this has always been that the people doing this do NOT expect to get useful information from torture. We were taught repeatedly at the JFK special warfare school that torture yields no useful information.

What it DOES do, however, is spread terror. I am sure the CIA operatives knew some of these people were innocent goat herders and children. That didn't matter. They would be eventually released back to their communities (those which weren't killed) and would spread news of the acts that were committed on them. The aim was simply to spread fear that if anyone else listening to these first-hand accounts of torture had a notion to join in the fight against the US forces, they would know what would become of them if captured. I'm sure the survivors could tell their families and friends about the ones they saw who died as well.

Needless to say this excludes the mentality of the suicide bomber. But one must remember that not all of these people have this mentality. Many just want to get to shoot Americans and live long enough to do it over and over.

In another sense, putting the regular soldiers up to this gruesome task also accomplishes an aim: it desensitizes them. One of the biggest problems the US military had was soldiers who were reluctant to pull the trigger and kill. Since the end of WW2 there has been a concerted effort to desensitize members of the military to the task of killing without hesitation or remorse. The civilian world backs up that aim of desensitization as well. Read any of (ret. Lt. Col.)Dave Grossman's books for background. The publicity surrounding abu Ghraib sends a message to other uniformed military: some day you may be called upon to do this. So adjust.

What I'm trying to bring out is people tend to solely focus on the 'torture for information' aspect of this whole affair without realizing there are other reasons for the policy: spread fear amongst your enemy while desensitizing your own troops to follow such orders. It increases both the lethality of your troops and the abject fear they will generate among the occupied populations.

And no, no one really important will ever have to pay for these crimes. The President fears the CIA far more than he fears congressional Republicans.

We will never have any chance at peaceful existence in this country without the South re-seceding. Wayward sisters depart in peace. Of course, we keep all the nukes up here.

"The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out." -- AH in Mein Kampf

What is also amazing is how flat footed the Obama White House was on the PR deluge they received. Their request to have people send them examples of these talking points is not only stupid (for reasons which, by now, should seem quite obvious) but also amateur hour. Where is the Obama 'War Room?'

"Conversations I've had with healthcare insiders: if you're middle class, you're soon going to lose your healthcare insurance. This isn't a minority opinion; it's what they all say or least all of the CEOs and VPs who've talked to me, off the record, of course."

Ah, so you're part of the medical insider elite that's already drawing up triage lists. Your cold bloodedness is amazing but people who consider themselves in some kind of elite group that pretends to judge who is worthy of life and not worthy of life think just like you.

You're no better than Mengele. My only wishes for you are (1) acquire a goddamn human heart (2) that you are never at the head of the line sending people to their fates with a flick of your clipboard.

fuck off.

Glenn,

We're deep into the letters and you've probably moved on to your next column but I had to thank you for this effort. I have heard the treacly tributes to Uncle Walt and though the same thing - these people commenting today aren't fit to shine Cronkite's shoes.

People today under 40 have no idea the way it used to be - and what has been lost.