Richie Rich: Yes I stole Bob's money, but I need more!

Teacher: Bob, I order you to give Rich more money!

.

Poor Bob: Yes I stole Rich's money, but I'm starving!

Teacher: [BANG!]

.

But,teacher, I waterboarded Bobby in good faith!

At this point, the media that don't call torture "torture" are complicit in torture. Any tactical considerations, such as cooperation from sadistic Bush officials, has long been outweighed by truth, morality, and the basic requirements of clear writing.

I'd only add that we'd be far past contesting this ridiculous point if the victims weren't Muslim and largley Arab.

Now, can we get the media elites to comment on their own bigotry?

"Today Allied troops liberated a detention facility. Some detainees at this facility claim the treatment they received adversely affected their physical health and refer critically to the facility, officially administered by German officials, as a 'death camp.' A Nazi spokesman, reached for comment, asserted that strict regulations determined detainee treatment, and all treatment was performed 'in good faith.'"

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of sadistic, violent men and women who tortured men and boys as young as fifteen. Some of this torture was decidely sexual in nature.

Obama calls these people "brave" and "heroes," but Obama lives in the heavily protected White House and sends his kids to a private Quaker school under heavy guard.

How do we protect our neighborhoods and children from these legally sanctioned sadists and perverts? Shouldn't they also have to be listed on offender registries with neighborhood notification and their faces in the paper? Would you want one of these wierdos living next to your kids? Wouldn't you at least want to know their proclivities?

What will Obama and the Democrats and Obama do to protect us from these sadists, if they refuse to carry out their sworn duty to put such criminals behind bars? We're the ones who will have to live with these violent, twisted psyopaths.

Other than the low-level soldiers who took the fall for their superiors at Abu Gharib, do we even know the names of the torturers at GitMo, Bagram, or CIA black sites?

We already know that the government does poorly at treating mental health issues among soldiers including PTSD, and we know from various sources about the negative mental health consequences on torturers themselves of the torture program. The torturers also seem to be people pre-disposed to violence, since some people clearly said "no" when ordered to torture.

Obama has not made it clear that the torturers are ready to integrate back into civil society, or clarified what mental health treatment they received. We don't even know where they are, do we?

In fact, just the opposite: Obama has excused the torturers and inflated their egos by calling their actions courageous. As if waterboarding a restrained prisoner in a jail cell at a black site is somehow a big risk for the torturer.

It's time for the Obama administration to come clean on what it is doing to protect Americans from the torturers among us, or at least give us the information that would help us protect ourselves.

How many torturers are still the US payroll?

How many US government workers are supervised or work with these psycopaths?

How many of the torturers have been reassigned, and do their new coworkers know of the danger they pose?

How many of torturers continue to perform interrogations?

How many have received psychiatric evaluation?

How many Muslim government workers are supervised by or work with these bigots?

What is the risk exposure for taxpayers if President Obama does not seek to remove these psychopaths from government positions, and continues to praise their violence and illegal activities?

At least by one user. I'd take the occassional toke, particularly if pot became fully legal.

Though, weed would replace my occassional beer, so perhaps the effect would be net zero?

Oh, I forget, alcohol is not a drug in Murrika. So, yes, the trade-off would mean in uptick in drug use.

Glen Greenwald, fluent Portoguese-speaker, and wrong again.

Obama, to his credit, has ended one of the darkest chapters of American history, when certain terrorist suspects were whisked off to secret prisons and subjected to waterboarding and other forms of painful coercion in hopes of extracting information about threats to the United States.

This summation contains many distortions. Not all those tortured were suspected of terrorism. Not all were in secret prisons (not all torture was by the CIA or its contractors). Not all were subjected to "painful coercion" in hopes of extracting information about threats to the US, some were tortured to try to justify the Iraq war. Also, some were tortured after they obviously were wrecked physically and had nothing left to say--torture for sadism's sake.

Note the passive tense "were whisked off...and subjected to" Who whisked them off and subjected them to torture? The journalist's first requirement is to answer "who."

Of course Broder substitutes euphimisms for torture.

In fact, it's not even clear that Broder is really equating the "dark period" with the torture regime. He might be just saying the post-911 period was dark.

Eh, he's just another evil old coot who hates America, the constitution, and the truth. Dime a dozen these days.