Letters to the Editor
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A lot of people are burned out and don't care
There will soon be a new administration. Many people no longer care to hear about this administration. Some of us are already sick of the continuous news about Obama vs. Hillary. There comes a point when more coverage turns into background noise. My capacity for outrage is dying a death of a thousand paper-cuts.
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Most people will never get it
Arguments about abstract rights, Common Article 3, peremtory norm are beyond the interest and capacity of most Americans, sad but true (call me an elitist).
Americans have now come around to the Dems' side, but only because Chimpy's policies are hitting them on a total gut level -- losing jobs, paying more for food and gas, losing homes, losing loved ones in Iraq. They still don't care about civil liberties and whatnot, especially for dudes names Ahmed. Don't kid yourself.
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Old Wine, New Bottle
So torture has gone from being the unofficial and unacknowledged policy of the US to the official and acknowledged policy of the US.
We've gone from being the premier colonial power in the world to being the premier incompetent colonial power in the world.
We've stopped fighting an ineffective War on Drugs that made us feel better and allowed us to seize the assets of people who were different from us, and started fighting an ineffective War on Terror that makes us feel better and allow us to seize the assets of people who are different from us.
We've stopped being run by corporations covertly, and now we're being run by corporations openly.
And you wonder why people think flag pins are a big deal?
What's really changed in the last eight years? The real answer: not much.
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Just to be an actual Devil's Advocate
The meetings did not establish a national policy of torture...quite the opposite, they determined legalisticly where the line between "enhanced interogation" and torture might be and advised those in the business of doing such things how close they could get to that line with the blessing of the administration.
Is it evil? Yes, but evil is an abosolute...torture is not...and if what was approved is torture, you must first determine the definition of is, which is still causing lawyers trouble.
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Where do we go from here?
If we're not going to reverse the policies do we:
a) Increase the severity of techniques not considered torture
or
b) Expand who can be interrogated using these methods?
If we accept abusing prisoners overseas then it'll be easier to do either of the above won't it?
I wonder how the soldiers (and contractors) ordered to use these techniques will fare in civilian life. How many will join local law enforcement?
The Republicans said that Bill Clinton set a bad moral authority for our Nation's youth. I'm sure the "enhanced interrogation techniques" they're learning now will help with that.
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The enmity earned is worse than any operation the torturers may learn about
The attitude of former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith is shared by some or most of the people running these rendition and torture ops: the Islamic world is too inferior to bother learning anything about. They don't know a rare name from a common one so they torture the Muslim surname analog of of a Johnson, Smith or Murphy without a care that they might have the wrong person. When the error is discovered the victim is dumped back on the street without compensation or apology. Do they think these veterans of Abu Ghraib and Balad will keep their mouths shut like the fatherless boys the torturers bullied in high school? Not likely. Even if they disappear their families will learn America was responsible. Rendition and torture is a political gift to the Jihadists.
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Good, I hope the police start using torture for ordinary crimes
At least then people will something to complain about.
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I'm thinking of two equations:
The first is the number of Salon readers who equate "the bad apples" at Abu Ghraib with the official policies on interrogation approved by the Department of Defense.
The second is the number of people, long subjected to ridicule, who thought that there was a connection between the Saddam Hussein government of Iraq and the attacks of 9/11.
Both equations are clearly incorrect. As for the first, there clearly were a few low-level bad apples. They had never been instructed in "harsh interrogations" and the abusive photos that gave birth to a thousand articles in The New Yorker, The Nation, Salon and too many others to count. The bad apples of Abu Ghraib were court-martialed. In the course of their courts martial, the defendants admitted that they were just fucking around. Stupidly, and against their orders.
The harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding were utilized, as far as I know, against a handful of the worst terrorists whom we've encountered in decades.
This installment of Tom Tomorrow is about as clever as the poor dumb bastard who believes that Saddam was behind the 9/11 hijacking attacks.
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And this is how democracy end
Not with a bang but with a yawn and a flick of the remote control. The downward spiral has begun.
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GOPS, are screwy! No Tree of Life. And that's the truth. Inform them. Glimpse. Sad. Inform GOPS they are depraved. Totally? It seems so...
GOPS all have drunk from the same glass,
Toxic. Void of any interior Life. Dead graves.
Moanful. Every morning is a pill dose of increased death. Whine. DEATH.
There is no connection to a Sephira force. From their deep roots. DEATH.
GOPS chose to disconnect from the source of meaningful Life. O Pathetic.
Listen to them. Depressing. The serration cuts deep to the core. DEATH.
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Snarf..
"I hope the police start using torture.."
Start? Good lord, what country are you living in and can I move there?
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Just quickly...
@ Dr. Zachary Smith: What makes you think we've given up that ineffective War on Drugs?
@ jgrosch: You give yourself too much credit for perspicacity. The spiral is almost over.
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@ Elephantman
Your stupidities will sway no one, but it is entertaining to see how the tiny little mind of a Republican works, so please keep posting.
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@ Clockwork Smurf
Your tortured logic is painful to read. Just as one example:
"evil is an absolute".
Glenn Greenwald devoted an entire book to exposing how this kind of thinking about evil has led to more of it being carried out in the world by humans than perhaps any other factor.
The US prosecuted those in WWII who used the "enhanced interrogation" techniques you describe. They did so because they called it torture.
Just because they (and you) embellish it with more syllables doesn't change the fact that we now know that this administration approved torture.
By the way, when you write:
"Just to be an actual Devil's Advocate..."
I couldn't decide if this was just an overuse of "actual", or if you meant to say that the Devil actually exists and that you were going to explain a position quite literally from the perspective of his attorney.
Once you determine that there is "pure evil" in the world, that creates the slippery slope, and pretty much anything can be justified in combatting it, it only follows. Every defense of this torture policy I've read basically comes down to "9/11" which basically translates to "yes but we can't afford such "rules" anymore, this is too scary."
What they fail to realize (or maybe they do realize) is that this is always how it happens. Those they call evil justify their acts exactly the same way. Those carrying out what we see as evil always have.