We would all certainly have profited more from this movie if he had been honest enough to include the Norway murder, but this is still a good beginning. Maybe a few more people will now begin to realize that absolute power -- be it in the hands of traumatized Zionists or braindead Bushco -- corrupts absolutely. Oversight and the rule of law are our only hope for peace and justice in our lifetimes.

So recriminalizing gay sex might be a way to get gay people back into the military?

Salon deserves praise for publishing anything, from any point of view, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Look at other online publications, even blogs like dKos, and you'll see that the extreme partisans -- on both sides of the conflict -- have effectively ended any debate on the subject. Like DZ, they immediately screech out claims of bias. The writer -- and, by extension, the publication -- is without exception either anti-Semitic or a Zionist stooge of AIPAC. There can never be any middle ground.

I nominate these people, on both sides, for Olberman's Worstest People in the World. By making it so unpleasant for most people even to think about Israel or Palestine, they've done a great job of sustaining and supporting all the bloodshed for over half a century!

If you honestly thought this lame little parody was funny, I bet you can now buy a complete collection of every season of HeeHaw! I'll accept that the stupid sex change at the end was "inspired" by the original spot, but what's with the poofy finger-waving that precedes it? No question, this video-maker is saying you can't be attracted to men AND be a man yourself. Which makes me think that s/he hasn't even bothered to see Brokeback Mountain.

To all of you conscience-free readers who are worried that these photos make Americans look "bad," I say it would take a Hieronymus Bosch to make us look as bad as we actually are. After all, we are a people who knew with absolute certainty that the Bush Administration was doing all this and worse -- and still 66% of the electorate either didn't care enough to go to the polls in 2004 or actually rewarded this sadistic evil with a vote of approval.

How many months have passed by since the first photos were released? How many days have come and gone without reports of new horrors? Is there anyone in America who doesn't know that right now, as I write this message, "doctors" are ramming tubes up detainees' noses in Guantanamo? Or that dozens of these same detainees are in such utter despair that they only want the freedom to die?

I have to wonder how you can continue to whine about your precious "image" abroad, how you can look at yourself in the mirror, how you can even think of being in the same room as your children, when you have done NOTHING to stop your government from committing these crimes -- and committing them in YOUR name.

Most Nazis at least had enough of a sense of shame to deny their evil. Yoo, on the other hand, is making lots of money on the speaker circuit defending his utter baseness. Only in America!

Thank you for loving this country enough to want to save it -- if it's not too late. And thank you especially for publishing the words "torture" and "war crimes." When the roughly 34% of Americans who still have a "favorable" opinion of this sadistic f**k-up (sorry, but that's the only word that comes close to expressing his criminal incompetence) whine, "But we didn't know!" we'll be able to point out this column as proof that they did in fact know but were simply not decent or humane enough to do anything about it.

You supposedly pro-Israel writers only hurt your cause when you attack well-researched, well-written articles like this one. Hard as it is for you to accept, most Americans see Palestinians as fellow human beings, and as such, worth understanding. Helena Cobban's article is a step in that direction.

is that she's a torture survivor (and her father was tortured to death by U.S.-backed Pinochet ghouls). Imagine having a president who was actually opposed to torture! As opposed to someone whose biggest concern is the pain and anguish suffered by abused American flags!

If we've learned anything the past six years, it's that there's no such thing as a good Republican. As charming as Snowe and Collins may appear, we must never let them forget that they are part of a party that is against women's rights, accountability and constitutional protections -- and, as a result, for persecution, corruption and torture.

A point that can't be made often enough is that there are always elements of sick sexuality in all these stories of Republican-directed torture and abuse. It's time we all started asking ourselves why we allow people to run our country who we wouldn't even consider leaving alone with our children.

Poll after poll shows that a majority of Iraqis approve of attacks against American soldiers, and over 2500 Americans have in fact been killed by Iraqis. So if the Israelis are justified in punishing all 1.5 million Gazans simply because they had the audacity to elect an anti-Israel party, doesn't the U.S. have the right to rape, torture and murder any Iraqi who gets in our way?

My point: isn't it a little absurd that we excuse behavior on the part of Israelis that we would condemn if Americans did it?

This story seems contrived to say: one, torture and abuse have been rare in Iraq; two, the very few people who have been tortured by those "bad apples" richly deserved to suffer; three, as bad as the torturees were, we are so good and honorable that we have thorough, transparent investigations even of these "exceptional" cases.

Michael Sherer, you've been duped. Check out http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20060627_occupation_iraq_hearts_minds/ to get an idea of the true extent of U.S. military war crimes in Iraq.