Of course the impetus to torture came from the very top. Conservatives love to see people tortured. That is what they believe in. The more people who are tortured, the better.

If you want to join the Republican Party now, you have to declare your belief that prisoners must be tortured, severly and often. Even more so if they are actually guilty of something.

If you do not love torture, then get out of the Republican party.

There's a fuckin shock.

Try standing up for people BESIDES terrorists. As much as you want Gitmo to be the most horrible place ever, its not, nor ever will be. Heck, they get more rights there than the Geneva Convention requires.

Where's your article about the real atrocities committed by people that are almost always in other countries? Oh yeah, thats not bashing America, which is the thing progressives do best!

The interesting question, I think, is when Cheney and Rumsfeld first embraced the idea that torture was the missing tool in the US armamentarium. Could its origin lie even before 9/11 -- like so many of their other doctrines?

The innovation is not the use of torture itself -- think School of the Americas -- but specifically adopting it as the standard modus operandi of our own military and intelligence agencies.

This fits in so well with the pre-emptive, 'untying our hands' thrust of 1980's-1990's rightism that it's hard to believe it was not part of the same ideology.

I have to wonder exactly why torture (and humiliation) had to be implemented as official US policy after being disavowed for the first 200+ years of our nationhood.

I see a more insidious goal: treat people like dirt to create a continuous stream of "terrorist" enemies... which guarantees a continuous stream of potential America-hating (withc good reason) attackers... which guarantees a never-ending need for increasing defense appropriations for the military to "protect" us from said attacks.

A perfect vicious circle of evil.

No exskewse!

Undoubedly these sadistic neocon Nazi Clones got a start on this stuff in grade school where they dropped coins to look up girl's dresses and placed pennies into unsuspecting kid's sandwiches. You knew them. You saw them do it but never intervened for fear of being bullied, or worse, being placed next on their list of things to do.

Just like the Democrats in Congress and the Senate now. Gripped with fear as they watched the "show", they now refuse to act on crimes that turn "normal" stomachs inside-out from fear of being next. They know it's wrong but are, for some reason, paralyzed by the acts. It's either that or they are in full agreement with the techniques. My guess is that it's the latter...

It's not like anyone will do anything about it. Nancy and Harry are about to give away the 4th amendment to GWB. What's a little torture compared to the privacy of the population? It appears now that the criminal activities of the Republicans in congress and the executive also include Democrats. With both parties bend on facism, I just don't see how anything matters much anymore. Our freedom is gone. Our justice system works only for the rich. Our own government would just as soon imprison us forever as give us a trial. This country is over. Nancy Pelosi will personally drive the last nail into the coffin herself.