“We had to invoke a natural neural response to get these people (3 and only 3) to stop an attack that would have killed thousands.”

Wrong. I admire your stubborness in pushing this idea, AJ – but it’s demonstrably false.

The reason torture was commited was due to Cheney and Rumsfeld’s desire to find a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda when none existed. They were sick, twisted people, desperate to find justification for starting a war they had already decided to fight, whether it was just or not.

Those of you that cheer on this kind of behavior are sick, or naive, or both. In any case, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

“What is more morally repugnant, pathetic and sadistic, roughing up a few terrorists whose life is committed to killing innocents or standing by and doing nothing while planes plow into buildings.”

Well, Bush and Cheney did both – so why don’t you go ask them?

I take pride in our country because of what they did – putting the lives of hundreds/thousands of Americans over the comfort of a few terrorist. I would not be able to do so if they offered these people tea and crumpets while thousands of Americans died.

We are the good guys. We had to invoke a natural neural response to get these people (3 and only 3) to stop an attack that would have killed thousands.

It is not torture, it was all pretend. Torture is not playing a mind game, or invoking a fear (fear of prison, fear of execution, fear of drowning – what’s the big dif?). Your simple minded spin is inaccurate.

We have lots of hurdles and checks and balances required to go to this level of interrogation. It only applies under very strict and threatening conditions – which need to be proven to exist.

Your lack of understanding is what is embarrassing. Your inability to face reality is the problem, and it destroys your credibility completely.

You, apparently, have no pride in your country whatsoever. The fact that you are not ashamed that this country had anything whatsoever to do with torture speaks to your low expectations of the United States.

We’re supposed to be the good guys. But we can’t – so long as we are filled with pathetic, sadistic cowards like you.

That’s because you are a morally repugnant excuse for a human being.

We need a truth commission to get to the bottom of what really happened and whether it actually made us safer. The more we learn about it, the more apparent it is that some conduct was torture. Not only do we need to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in obtaining reliable intelligence (which is eroding further with each secret memo that is released), but we need to evaluate the negative repercussions. For all the flack that Obama took over reversing his decision on the release of the torture photos, which I think was the right and politically courageous decision, we now know that our military commanders uniformly believe that the use of these tactics will inflame the Arab world, complicate our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and endanger our soldiers. It’s too bad there aren’t any real journalists left who would put that question to Cheney while he is on his You Better Not Prosecute Me For War Crimes road show – “Mr. Cheney, do you agree with our military commanders that the use of EIT tactics may have actually endangered our soldiers and international efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq?”

Do it again. It really is effective. The rest of that bunch of Overseers should take note and try it. Kit Bond even had them laughing on MSNBC.

Now all she needs to do is come out and say the CIA was behind 9/11 and she will have a seat for life.

So basically we have the people of a tiny little district in San Francisco calling the shots of the US House of Representatives. Amazing. Nothing good will come of it.