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Saturday, June 6, 2009 12:00 AM

The NYT's nice, new euphemism for torture

What happened at Guantanamo was just some "intense interrogation."

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  • Saturday, June 6, 2009 06:44 PM

    Let's give this some thought...

    Obama is willing to consider killing an unspecified number of people - let's be honest and call it murder, since it's not going to be the result of due process and it isn't happening on a battlefield or to prevent a crime - solely to cover up the widely-known fact that they were tortured.

    Something doesn't make sense here. Everybody except the mainstream media, most Obama supporters, and the vast majority Republicans already knows that torture took place on a secret but certainly widespread scale.

    (Yes, that means that the majority of the American people either don't know about or approve of the torture, but that's just a sad commentary which bears out my suspicion that America no longer deserves or will retain a democratic system of government. We're not fit to rule ourselves. But I digress.)

    The question is this: why? What does Obama get out of this? Does it make sense that he'd defy both our own laws, and international laws to which the US is a signatory - not to mention every law of conscience - merely to protect Bush/Cheney and their accomplices? That simply doesn't make sense.

    No. There has to be something more. But I'll admit that I'm not sure what it could be.

    Could it be that the details of the torture are so much more horrific than we can imagine? So horrific that they will even shock the jaded and vestigial consciences of the majority of the American people? Is Obama doing this simply because he doesn't want to be forced by public outcry to investigate Bush/Cheney?

    Could he be continuing to commit torture himself, secretly? That would certainly give him a strong incentive to both cover up and immunize torture by the executive branch. This actually explains many formerly-inexplicable acts by Obama and his DOJ. Yes, maybe they want to torture, or are actively doing so.

    But why?

    Or is there some other possible explanation? So far, I haven't been able to come up with one. But if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be very interested in hearing them!

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