The old adage that a photograph is worth a thousand words still holds true.

Just as Eddie Adams' captionless photo of Gen. Nguyen Loan executing a Viet-Cong in the street of Saigon during the 68 Tet offensive was a catalyst for negative public opinion back then - so were the photographs of what Americans and the world saw at Abu Ghraib.

Unfortunately, to correct what were seen as negative shortcomings, we may have errored by taking what we thought were positive steps to change interrogation methods and standards, but that now appear to be set lower than they should be. Thus denying our interrogators valuable, but what were legal under Geneva, tools of the "craft."

However, and interestingly, the new revised field manual for interrogation, seems to me, to have been written with some flexibility that might leave some wiggle room open for interrogators to approach different detainees/POWs differently as they see necessary (I’m still looking into it)?

Again, there is another old adage - it takes a negative and a positive charge to make a successful electrical circuit. The same holds true for any other procedures.

" A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough." FDR

"Bush administration lawyers who paved the way for sleep deprivation and waterboarding of terrorism suspects exercised poor judgment but will not be referred to authorities for possible sanctions, according to a forthcoming ethics report, a legal source confirmed." - Washington Post 30 January 2010

This stain on our military will take a long time to wash out. We now have political leaders who publicly advocate torture and who believe that it is necessary to insure our security; that is the most dangerous legacy of this destruction of our core values. There were many failures of our generalship during this period but none so profound as the departure from Washington's rule that "Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country." Navy General Counsel Alberto Moro was a civilian patriot with the courage to try to stop these outrages, where were the generals? Those who claim that these methods are not torture give open license for there use against American service members anywhere at anytime.

The international relations disaster that our interrogation policies turned into are what we get for sending amateurs to do the work of professionals. People were assigned to conduct interrogations who didn't have the knowledge and temperament to do the job without resorting to tactics that cannot stand up to international scrutiny. The problem was magnified by attitudes that carried down from the highest levels in government that these people were subhuman and anything was justified to be able to stop the 'ticking time bomb.' The pop culture notion of a ticking time bomb that could be stopped by extracting information from a suspect is a fantasy used to rally support for torture. There's never been a ticking time bomb so we need to stop believing that interrogations must be conducted under that pressure.

I continue amazed that serving officers and national-security professionals enter into discussion about the efficacy of torture in face of law we accept and endorse. Nations propound and adopt formal laws of war primarily to protect their own forces. The US has rejected torture traditionally, in treaty, and does so now in every international agreement pertaining. The policy of the Bush Administration in this area is a national shame that will take many years to fade.

Perhaps it's time to banish discussions of this topic from this blog.

unsaid by Herrington and born out by the lack of relevant comment here is that our military leaders have not made a strong case of why we need robust, legal and smart interrogation programs.

Most of what we know about Al Qaeda has come from interrogation - much of what we knew about the Iraqi insurgency also came from interrogation. It is a valuable tool to our intelligence arsenal and Herrington is right to note that the latest manual, published in 2006 is a poorly written document that has overcorrected the sins of Gitmo and Abu G.

Generals Kimmons and Fast bear much of the responsibility on the Army side for the document's failures. They clearly wanted to put a new document out, have a press conference and turn the page. I agree torture is bad, the oversight of interrogation programs at GITMO and Abu G was horrendous. But (in classic Army-fasion) rather than hold MG Miller or Fast or COL Pappas truly responsible, the Army puts out a new manual and doctrine that is unsound and adds layers of bureacracy so the only one who could possibly be blamed if anything goes wrong is the young Soldier asking the questions. This is bad policy, but good politics I guess...

Quick - Name a general who has stood in front of the media and sited the successes of military interrogation programs -- Zarqawi, Saddam, Christian Peacekeeper rescue, order of battle info on insurgent groups ranging from AQI to Iranian QF support to Shia Militia. The list is extensive - much of it's a good news story -- lost to the idocy of Cheny and the failure to do the right thing by a number of military officers along the way.

Doctrine generally reads like a set of principles and focuses on application in history to define the concepts it wants to teach. The new interrogation manual reads like a legal text book.

Our nation stupidly endorsed torture at the start of this conflict. In embracing this new manual that adds bureacracy, limits operational flexibility and breaks from sound concepts of segregating prisoners prior to interrogation - we've doubled down on dumb.

A few days ago you write:

Herrington, a seasoned interrogator who advocates treating prisoners with respect and decency -- not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is the most effective way to gather intelligence.

Now you're criticizing Bush-era interrogation tactics that came about as a response to complaints about housing detainees in isolation?

Will you make up your mind? Or will you just continue to mindlessly parrot anything that you believe harms a political opponent? For God's sake, grow up.

First things first: MG Barbara Fast should have been court-martialed for dereliction of duty for what transpired during her watch! Her knowledge on how to obtain timely intelligence from captured enemy combatants wouldn't fill a thimble. The greatest fear that any human being has is "fear of the unknown." And the dimwits that make-up the senior leadership of the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence Branch, who signed off on the Army's "new and improved" Intel FM, which outlines exactly what captured detainees can expect during interrogation, have stripped the "fear of the unknown" from Army interrogators repertoire. Once again the Army’s MI careerists have proven that they're grossly incompetent, totally clueless and just plain stupid when it comes to the basics of how to obtain timely, actionable Intel in today's Internet Age, from an unconventional enemy, who doesn't fight-by-the-book and honor any prescribed rules of warfare.