Senator Wyden: Americans will be "profoundly disturbed" by report on CIA

[JDPriestly]

19. If the US takes no action to prosecute those responsible for the torture, maybe some

international body will. I don't think the US will do a thing. And the right-wing press will try to make heroes of the people who authorized the torture. The world will judge in any event. And I think that is a good thing. Maybe if the world let's the Bush administration know how immoral this torture is, then Republicans will think twice before doing such things again.

By the way, it seems logical to me that the torture did not produce much information. I would be surprised if Al Qaeda is organized like a well-oiled military in a sophisticated country. They may be successful in their inhuman, cruel isolated actions. But I gather from how widespread they seem to be and what fanatics they are that the individuals in Al Qaeda are probably not people who follow a leader with great discipline. Their actions may take short-term discipline and there may be small to medium-sized groups that are well disciplined, but the left hand probably does not always know what the right-and is doing, and neither does the brain, whoever that is.

If, in an organization, the information about strategy is diffused through the system and tends in part to bubble up rather than to trickle down, people working in the system know random facts that vaguely form a pattern, but do not know have an overall understanding of that system. In other words, systems that are loosely formed, made up of people who have a vague goal but are not focused on organization are difficult to spy on. Which is why the NSA is so frustrated that it tries to spy on all of us. It needs a different approach. It has a tough challenge.