Just for Hitchens As he flails about intellectually, as opposed to physically (having spent years building up a tolerance for such things), here is another bit o' information for Hitch to wash down with the bitters and the bitterness.

The commander of Guantánamo Bay, sacked amid charges from the Pentagon that he was too soft on detainees, said he faced constant tension from military interrogators trying to extract information from inmates... ...In one of the general's first interviews since his dismissal, he told the Guardian: "I was mislabelled as someone who coddled detainees. In fact, what we were doing was our mission professionally." Gen Baccus's unceremonious departure offers a rare insight into how the Pentagon rewrote the rules of warfare to suit the Bush administration's view of a radically changed world following the terror attacks of September 11 2001. It also suggests what can happen to military personnel slow to sign on to the Pentagon's changed view of the world. Eighteen months after being removed from Guantánamo, Gen Baccus, 51, and a commander of the Rhode Island National Guard, is still waiting for a new military assignment. [Ed: Jeebus, did he oppose tax cuts too?]... ...Yesterday, new evidence emerged that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was systematic, part of a policy instituted at US military detention centres from Guantánamo and Afghanistan to Iraq, and not restricted to the seven low-ranking soldiers charged so far in connection with the scandal. Colonel Thomas Pappas, who commanded the military intelligence brigade at the prison, said interrogators sometimes instructed the military police to strip detainees and shackle them before they were questioned, a report in the New York Times said. Col Pappas said the practice was among the changes recommended by Gen Miller - and among those resisted by Gen Baccus.

Poor delusional Hitch, he was once the great contrarian, now he's just another hack consigned to the looney bin with Coulter and the Cornerites, even Sully the Silly only occasionally visits there. Sad really.