Torture: Not Okay
I had links. I had links about the "extraordinary renditions," where we kidnap people (yes, kidnap them) and take them to places like Syria where they are secretly tortured and secretly tried. I had links about "Brooklyn's Abu Ghraib," where post-9/11 torture of assorted Semitic-looking people happened ON OUR SHORES (surprise! The Justice Department has declined to prosecute!).
But you know what? I'm too mad to do links. I'm too angry that our intelligence services, and increasingly our politics, have become the Catholic Priesthood for torturephiles. That's right! It is nothing...but a big...scam.
Someone or some group of people, in the last fifty years, has convinced the CIA, the military, lots of Republicans, and even some spineless Democrats, that torture is good (when done to foreign brown people and uppity nuns like Sister Dianna Ortiz whom we will then accuse of being lesbians). I don't know what they said. It's the way of the world? Everyone else does it? It will make people respect us? The commies/terrorists will take over if we don't do it? You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs? Whatever they said, it worked, and they got to write their sick-minded manuals and open their all-torture-all-the-time School of the Americas and "harden" American military personnel (y'know, just in case) and generally have lots more fun than if they had to stay home chopping up vagrants in the basement like Jeffrey Dahmer. Hey, at least Jeffrey Dahmer knew he had a problem. He didn't fool himself that he was saving America.
These people, and their policies, are a big reason why the world is the hellhole that it is. And it's all for nothing. Torture works on whoever's being tortured, that's for damn sure, but it doesn't do anything else. In fact, it backfires. Duh! In the end, it does nothing but give sick satisfaction to people who should be in a locked room somewhere on a Thorazine drip.
But those people have the ear of power now. Our president apparently likes what they have to say.
Torture's not okay. Okay? And if we the public get seduced down this road by fantasies of power and "dealing with" the bad guys and making big freedom omelets, we are going to be sorry.
But you know what? I'm too mad to do links. I'm too angry that our intelligence services, and increasingly our politics, have become the Catholic Priesthood for torturephiles. That's right! It is nothing...but a big...scam.
Someone or some group of people, in the last fifty years, has convinced the CIA, the military, lots of Republicans, and even some spineless Democrats, that torture is good (when done to foreign brown people and uppity nuns like Sister Dianna Ortiz whom we will then accuse of being lesbians). I don't know what they said. It's the way of the world? Everyone else does it? It will make people respect us? The commies/terrorists will take over if we don't do it? You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs? Whatever they said, it worked, and they got to write their sick-minded manuals and open their all-torture-all-the-time School of the Americas and "harden" American military personnel (y'know, just in case) and generally have lots more fun than if they had to stay home chopping up vagrants in the basement like Jeffrey Dahmer. Hey, at least Jeffrey Dahmer knew he had a problem. He didn't fool himself that he was saving America.
These people, and their policies, are a big reason why the world is the hellhole that it is. And it's all for nothing. Torture works on whoever's being tortured, that's for damn sure, but it doesn't do anything else. In fact, it backfires. Duh! In the end, it does nothing but give sick satisfaction to people who should be in a locked room somewhere on a Thorazine drip.
But those people have the ear of power now. Our president apparently likes what they have to say.
Torture's not okay. Okay? And if we the public get seduced down this road by fantasies of power and "dealing with" the bad guys and making big freedom omelets, we are going to be sorry.
posted by Savannah at
11:00 AM
2 Comments:
Too *mad* to do links? What are you talking about?
If you're making a claim, support it! You can't expect others to share your outrage or to be convinced of your case if you pepper your entries with loopholes like that.
After all, I've misplaced the video I shot of American F-16s shooting down Flight 93. I'm also too mad to post the links I've got to a statement made President Bush accepting responsibility for the mistakes of Donald Rumsfeld.
You wouldn't take these on faith just because I've said that they might exist somewhere? Would you? You shouldn't.
I look forward to more from you.
By
Anonymous, at 11:21 AM
Renditions: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/outrage?bid=13&pid=2215
Torture of post-9/11 suspects committed on American soil: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022205H.shtml
A piece by Sister Dianna Ortiz: http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/040625DiannaOrtiz.shtml
I was not able to find a link to the article from an old (probably fifteen-year-old) Ms. Magazine which discusses the propaganda that Dianna Ortiz received her injuries from a putative lover, although there is a Sojourners article at http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&mode=printer_friendly&issue=soj9607&article=960710 which refers to "slander" against her when she tried to get more information about her case.
By
Savannah, at 12:16 PM
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