The business of the torture of people in the custody of America, and the indications that this wasn't just a bunch of sick lowlifes, but that they were doing what was expected of them by some very senior people, seems to have been successfully drifted off stage in this thread, by important stuff that would be better dealt with in a separate thread.

The latest pictures of happy smiling guards giving the thumbs up over the body of a young man who has died under interrogation ought to be on the front pages of all American papers tomorrow. I somehow suspect they won't be.

Here is one of them - and isn't it a lovely smile? No sign of any embarrassment or awkwardness. An all-American girl indeed. And then you look down the photo to why she's smiling so radiantly...

Its been stuck next to a press account of what happened when the US gunships turned up at that wedding party.

The US army spokesman really does have a great way of putting his foot in his mouth: "This operation is not something that fell out of the sky". Except that is exactly what happened - an example of what happens when, in order to minimise risks to military personnel, any effort to minimise the risk to innocent people on the ground is totally disregarded.