McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder), whom Glenn rightly praises, reports that Bush gave a speech this week in which he explicitly stated that the enemy in Iraq is the same al-Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11. A while back, he corrected himself in mid-sentence at a press conference and said "the same people, the same type of people, who attacked us". Now there isn't even an attempt at obfuscation, just a bald lie. I haven't seen this noted anywhere except by the McClatchy reporter, who goes on to put debunk it with inconvenient facts. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17471.html

The military just released their stats for June indicating that civilian casualties are down (although US casualties are up). This is being touted as an indication of the success of the new strategy.

Could it be that the civilian numbers are down because the civilians are now being counted as terrorists or al-Qaeda? Just possibly?

The officers of my former professional organization seem to be willfully blind to the issues. Specific "interrogation techniques" are not the only problem. I believe it is the totality of the conditions imposed on prisoners that is responsible for the most damage to them psychologically. Extreme isolation is probably the worst aspect of their ordeal, apart from whatever happens during an actual interrogation.

The isolation is not the same thing as "sensory deprivation" as it is known in research, but it produces many of the same symptoms.

The isolation is extended, even for years, and it is in the context of denial of all due process and all human contact, with the expectation of permanent captivity, deprivation of the most minimal comforts, humiliation, and deliberate total dependency on the jailers and interrogators.

Add to that, the deprivation of stimuli that keep a person oriented, such as ordinary daylight, visual stimuli, and sleep disruption and you have a scenario which, if viewed on a particular day might not seem severe but in fact is intolerable torture which leads to extreme emotional regression and cognitive decompensation. In the context of this extreme manipulation of the individual's environment, the other abuses that occur are all the more powerful in de-humanizing the prisoner.

Psychologists should not be associated with this in any way, whether they are civilian or in the military, and APA officers should recognize the reality of the total prison experience rather than focusing on limited behaviors that might take place during interrogation. If they do not recognize these basic aspects of psychological functioning and psychopathology, they have no business calling themselves psychologists. And if they enable human rights abuse by associating with it, their ethical code is meaningless.

APA's new position would seem to allow psychologists to participate in so-called "torture lite", which in fact is extremely damaging even though it leaves no marks. It would allow psychologists to accept, without protest, the conditions that destroyed the personality of Jose Padilla, as just one example. Psychologists, of all people, ought to understand psychological torture, and not take such a literal, limited view of what is damaging to prisoners.

So if I understand him, responding to 9/11 by invading the country that did not attack us was a good idea because it shows how crazy we are?

Noonan is the perfect prototype of the Republican wife. We all know the type. She never disturbs her pretty mind with troubling, complicated thoughts like those stupid, unkempt Democratic women who are always talking about the yucky lives of the poor and underprivileged. Her husband has two, and she spends the money without ever questioning where it came from. OMG, why would anyone do THAT? Life is good, if you just ignore the riff-raff losers and look the other way. Smile and vote Republican (why of course, who would EVER consider anything else, I mean anyone who MATTERS?)

You know her. She's the airhead wife of the jerk who is rushing around in the street during an emergency, shouting orders and trying to look important.

People who try to cover up their fear of looking weak don't look strong, they look like people who are trying to cover up their fear of looking weak.

The only way to look strong is to be strong, and that requires acting on the courage of your convictions despite your fear.

Where are you Martin Luther King? America turns its lonely eyes to you.

The only thing the boorish Obama demonstrators proved is that those who shout the loudest and dumb down the debate the most with their simplistic slogans can get their way, at least for a while.

Some time I would like to read a news story that begins with "a Republican operative called me this morning and suggested I write this story." Or the reporter names the operative and describes the process of thinking it over and digging up some information independently. OK, don't name the operative but at least do the work. I think that's called the whole truth.

And thanks to Charlie Savage and the Boston Globe. I was unaware of this Q&A. It makes a huge difference to me in supporting Obama (or Clinton, for that matter - her responses were essentially the same). Now I would like to see Obama, the constitutional scholar, actively bring these matters up as major campaign issues rather than consign them to the archives of the Boston Globe. We certainly can not count on the press, other than a few exceptions such as Savage, to focus on these crucial questions.

Is it off-limits to criticize Palin for being vicious? The Republicans want to make to the election all about "character", as they define it, once again. She revealed herself in her speech to be a very nasty person, and to me, that reflects very poor character. Is that criticism too personal? No, she is selling the character that she very consciously portrayed, and that is a fair target for criticism.