is changed by the media and other euphemistically inclined folks to "enhanced lifespan completion".

Has anyone determined how many of those who inflicted the torture were contractors hired by the government vs. military or CIA personnel?

Funny thing about the past few years: I used to think this kind of statement was just as bad as equivalent assertions from the right. After all, both sides have their wingnuts and both have their intelligent, well-reasoned advocates. It's fallacy to assume one party has a lock on either.

Then the GOP went supernova, casting off moderates and independents with the stellar winds and leaving behind a densely-packed core of wingnuts. And the only people who haven't yet noticed this happen to own and operate the majority of the national media.

Now, after watching the aforementioned wingnuts operate in the intervening years, I agree with that statement wholeheartedly. You simply cannot reason with the Right as long as they continue to operate in bad faith.

And bad faith is just about all they have left to offer America.

While some of those deaths were the result of "rogue" interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation and others.

Should we even make the distinction between "rogue" killings and murders directly resulting from approved tactics? Didn't the Bush Admininstration try to pass off Abu Ghraib as the scene of a "few bad apples"? The point is that when a system is set up in which the "enemy" (read: Muslim and/or Arab) is completely dehumanized and stripped of any rights guaranteed by international laws, torture and murder are bound to follow. There's little distinction between what Lynndie England did and what some "patriotic" CIA interrogator felt "compelled" to do. Both are the inevitable products of the same regime.

murder is legal if Republicans do it.

There's no excusing "accidental" death here. If you kill someone in the commission of a felony, say, robbing a liquor store--even if you "didn't mean to"--guess what? You're guilty of first-degree murder.

If you kill a helpless prisoner in camp, while torturing him, same thing.

And, it should be needless to say, if you ordered the torture of numerous people who subsequently died, you are, once again, a murderer.

Those who died due to torture without having been convicted in a trial were therefore innocent.

I have sad news to report.

Once many of us read Billmon's Whiskey Bar and loved his writings. Then we used Moon of Alabama to make comments on Billmon's posts after he gave up on moderating the comment section. Well, Billmon closed the bar and we still read "b" (Bernhard) at MOA and made comments.

Today, "b" announced that after 5 years he was closing shop due to a change in his circumstances. If you ever were a fan, you might leave a comment there. Link at sig.

---------------

As Glenn posts great articles day after day, treasure the ones you really like because he may well not always do this. He might elect to try another venture someday. I hope not, but years of daily bloging can be a grind I guess. So, enjoy today's post --- it is the only one by Glenn we know we have.

Every official in the watchdog committee over these agencies should also be prosecuted as accomplices after the fact.

Any bets?

Nothing will be done as the criminals in charge do not want to charge their friends with a crime.

When sexual perverts rule over you this is what you get.

Will the Americans who haven't lost the capacity to be outraged by murder be dubbed "civil liberties extremists," "Constitutional purists," or just garden variety "Far Leftists?"

How about Purist Rule Of Law Extremists Against The Murder Of Prisoners Held Without Charge. Or PROLE's, for short.

Well, the Neocons and their best buddies found mouthpieces and euphemisms to make excuses for the 'enhanced interrogation techniques"- this is a slightly harder task, justifying/putting a happy face on outright murder, but I got just the guy for the job:

"Harry Lime: Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't. Why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers and the mugs - it's the same thing. They have their five-year plans, so have I.

Martins: You used to believe in God.

Harry Lime: Oh, I still do believe in God, old man. I believe in God and Mercy and all that. But the dead are happier dead. They don't miss much here, poor devils."

Just trying to make people happy since at least 2002.

Somebody cue the Ombudsbabe on the new party line.

Its a shame that the homicides resulting from the torture program aren't talked about in the MSM. If it were talked about more, neocons and other warhawks wouldn't be able to scream "it was just a splash of water on their faces" or "these are the worst of the worst."

I watched the documentary taxi to the darkside about a month ago and its really sad to know that there are at least 100 hundred cases of homicides just like Dilawar's.

We're not talking about people accidentally killed by a bomb dropped from 35,000 feet ...

Glenn, there's nothing accidental about civilians being murdered by aerial bombings. It's a foregone conclusion that this will happen, and Americans should condemn these bombings every bit as much as they should condemn torture.

I've tried this argument, and it's always countered with, "Who cares? They're terrorists!"

You cannot reason with the Right.

I wish it was just the Right. Unfortunately a lot of people, not from the Right, seem to hold this opinion.

let the dead bury the dead. Leave it be. Let it heal. We did worse in Vietnam... They forgive us. why? We let them. Let's let the Iraqis forgive us... Let it go.

You forgot: It's in the past.

e.g. Obama's Cabinet

Never mind the waterboarding, here's the sodomy

by Allan Uthman

"Yasser tearfully described that when he reached the top of the steps 'the party began…They started to put the [muzzle] of the rifle [and] the wood from the broom into [my anus]. They entered my privates from behind.' ...Yasser estimated that he was penetrated five or six times during this initial sodomy incident and saw blood 'all over my feet' through a small hole in the hood covering his eyes."

– Physicians for Human Rights, Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact

http://www.911blogger.com/node/20512