Wednesday, April 29, 2009

It's a sickness

Why is it that we haven't heard (in the mainstream press anyway) the word sadism in connection with our torturing leaders? To my mind, it's the only word that explains their behavior. All the evidence (not to mention the law) weighs (and weighed) against their use of torture. When those memos were first written, when the government first started treating human beings like dirt, everyone already knew the facts. These "techniques" were illegal throughout the world, they didn't work, they put our own troops in jeopardy, they were viewed by civilized people as anathema--on and on it goes--plus they'd been getting good information by other means. Cherchez la raison, oui? Sadism is all I can think of. They got their rocks off, I think is the technical term, by knowing people were forced to submit to such "techniques" by their order. Isn't that what we assume went on, often at least, with the Nazis? These people either lived through the Second World War or had read about it, surely. Whether they knew it was torture or not is not an open question. It's hideously sick and they need treatment, although it's probably way too late for them to change.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Oh Please

Who cares if the torture worked or not? It doesn't matter. The law, the Geneva Conventions and our own law, doesn't talk about practicality--does it work or doesn't it? Torture is forbidden period. If we're a nation of laws, we must obey them, even at the risk of annihilation. Because basically a civilization is destroyed as much by acts of torture as by acts of terror. And so, here's another question, where is the ABA in this? Why aren't they starting disbarment proceedings for their members, like Gonsalez and Bybee, who not only condoned but excused this behavior.

Monday, April 20, 2009

On teabag protests from Hullabaloo

Nevermind that the entire teabag protest was less than 10% of the number of Americans who protested the Bush/Iraq war in February of '03. Nevermind that Stephanopolous, if not others, covered the international protests in '03 but deliberately ignored the huge domestic rallies. Nevermind that there was no followup from the mainstream media of any kind on these protests except to systematically minimize the number of attendees until they shrank to what Bush described as a few guys from Berkeley. While the lunatic, hapless, teabaggers are significant, the far larger segment of the American people who opposed Bushism when it mattered (and whose opposition was intelligent and prescient) were invisible. And still are, for the most part, when it comes to the mainstream media.