Easy answers for simple questions

(regarding the B*sh junta's attempts to legalize torture)

Gets pretty tortured when you try, as the writers do, to establish that it’s okay to kidnap people in other countries and torture them because our government wants to get incorrect information - all that can be obtained through torture. We are using the NATO compact to prove we can arrest and torture ‘suspects’ - who are no longer allowed to contest their arrest - on the streets in other countries? What sort of country are we?

(Ruth at Correntewire)

You could point at the USA's history in Central America and say "so, what else is new?", but at least the USA was ashamed enough about that to just sort of try to pretend that we didn't have anything to do with the torturers we trained, funded, and provided military support to. These days the USA has a government where one of the most important things is to reserve the ability to legally torture people.

And this is a government that is supported by between 40% and 50% of the voting public. The 2006 election didn't turn on the morality of torture, but on the Evil Party's incompetence, so you can easily figure that a distressingly large part of the electorate is *just fine* with torture just as long as the trains run on time.

"What sort of country are we?"

Evil.

But if you had to ask, I'd bet you already knew that.

—orc Wed Feb 28 12:05:36 2007

This Space for Rent

Easy answers for simple questions