You guys BOTH beat me to it. It's the first time I've heard a defense of School of the Americas that read, well, sure it teaches torture and murder, but it also teaches proper hygiene! Goes right along with his defense of American soldiers in the last sentence: "Not quite as brutal as Saddam Hussein!"

It's simply not been proven that the folks at Abu Ghraib did it "mostly on their own." That's a Republican talking point that is trying desperately to become an unchallenged belief among Americans. But the techniques they were using were too consistent with a widely known system called RTI (Resistance to Interrogation) for this to be credible. Someone above them in the hierarchy told them what to do (and from what I've heard, NHDave is right and it was a civilian operation, not even CIA but "contractors" aka mercenaries).

I also notice your statement that

Small rods of the sort used to clean rifles can double for middle eastern interrogation/torture devices, but it is the person weilding the equipment and not his training that turns his equipment to these uses.

Can they not also double for American or European interrogation/torture devices? Is it just me or did this seem racist: "this can be used for middle eastern torture, but it's the [middle eastern] people who are evil...

Okay NHDave, I know you didn't mean that. But I DO think a few prejudices show through that wording.

Also, a person CAN be trained to do this. It seems odd for you to to say "it's not his training that does it." Are you saying that it's okay to TRAIN people as torturers because in the end, you can still blame the person and not the training? That's walking a mighty fine line!