Jeremy wrote:
] I recommend the Mark Bowden article in Atlantic Monthly.

I recall it, but thank you for re-referencing it. Others may have missed it.

] also recommend the second Seymour Hersh article after Abu
] Ghraib, about "COPPER GREEN".

I skipped that one. I'm linking a Wikipedia article here that includes it along with the DoD's official reply.

hrm...

“We’re giving the world a ready-made excuse to ignore the Geneva Conventions. Rumsfeld has lowered the bar.”

Do you recall in the late nineties a series of executions in Texas of foreign defendants who were not afforded access to their consulates?

] If, by "discussion", you mean a public discourse on the
] subject, good luck. Your government may not be particularly
] interested in your opinions on the matter.

Are they particularly interested in my opinions on any matter?

Its occurred to me recently that I spend an aweful lot of time, with this website, reading, and thinking, and writing about current events. I know way more about what is going on in the world then almost anyone that I know who isn't also participating in this thing. I guess its important to me, post 9/11, to have a clue. I don't want to be caught off guard again. I don't want to be surprised when world events take an important turn.

But what purpose does all of this really serve? What am I accomplishing here? I'm not in a position to do anything with all the information I'm taking in, nor is this information helping me get anywhere where it might be useful. Am I just entertaining myself? Is this intellectual masturbation?