Do you ever get the feeling that the Pentagon is being run by Phil Hartman's character from the Sgt. Bilko movie? (ETA additional excerpt)

...which is a very funny film, BTW. But this ain't so much.

A man called "Matthew Alexander" (a pseudonym) is having a book published about his experiences as an army interrogator. He's also written an article for the Washington Post:

I'm not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me -- both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn't work.

But what really made me think that Hartman's Major Thorn was in charge is what "Alexander" says about the-

extraordinary amount of unclassified material -- including passages copied verbatim from the Army's unclassified Field Manual on interrogations and material vibrantly displayed on the Army's own Web site.

-which the Army tried to redact before permitting the book to be published.

If memory serves--and it does--this is very similar to what the CIA did to the gorgeous Valerie Plame Wilson when her book was written. (Her book is also important and fascinating, BTW--I don't mean to suggest she's only gorgeous.)

Back to "Alexander:"

I sued, first to get the review completed and later to appeal the redactions. Apparently, some members of the military command are not only unconvinced by the arguments against torture; they don't even want the public to hear them.

We're told that our only options are to persist in carrying out torture or to face another terrorist attack. But there truly is a better way to carry out interrogations -- and a way to get out of this false choice between torture and terror.