This is Sadly Very Un-Surprising

For those who aren't already familiar, wikileaks is probably the most important website to have been launched in recent history. Much like it's apolitical big-sister wikipedia, it's a one-stop, user-run clearinghouse for leaked documents alleging corporate and government misconduct. And again much like wikipedia, it is subject to the whims of a few jerks with too much time on their hands, but is far more often than not right on the money.

Well, wikileaks has recently received a 219-page document authored by the United States government on methods of counter-insurgency. Please only read this if you already have a handy several-feet-thick wall of cynicism protecting you like I do, but in the meantime, have a sample:

The manual, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces (1994, 2004), may be critically described as “what we learned about running death squads and propping up corrupt government in Latin America and how to apply it to other places”. Its contents are both history defining for Latin America and, given the continued role of US Special Forces in the suppression of insurgencies and guerilla movements world wide, history making.

The document, which has been verified, is official US Special Forces doctrine. It directly advocates training paramilitaries, pervasive surveillance, censorship, press control and restrictions on labor unions & political parties. It directly advocates warrantless searches, detainment without charge and the suspension of habeas corpus. It directly advocates bribery, employing terrorists, false flag operations and concealing human rights abuses from journalists. And it directly advocates the extensive use of “psychological operations” (propaganda) to make these and other “population & resource control” measures more palatable.

The document has been particularly informed by the long United States involvement in the El Salvador…

As Jonathan Schwarz points out, for those doubting the authenticity of the document, remember that a few years back the State Department advocated the use of "The Salvador Option" to bring Iraq under control.

So, with the risk of adding several more feet to the aforementioned wall o' cynicism, please explain to me why I should continue to believe in a government that openly espouses torture, kidnapping, and murder as completely acceptable foreign (and domestic) policy initiatives?