I Pit the Bush Administration for Torturing Innocent People

The BBQ Pit
1

I don’t have the energy to do it justice, but somebody’s gotta do it:

It’s a shame that quisling Congresspersons would even consider denying Bush the power to continue torturing people. :rolleyes:

What really scares me is that, after years and years of increasingly appalling atrocities, I can’t even get pissed about something like this anymore. Call it outrage fatigue, or something like that. All I know is that I’m tired of hearing about this shit, and I want it to stop.

I want to be proud of my country again someday. It may be awhile.

2

Gonzales defence is remarkably lame:

Who could ever imagine that the Hezbollah backing Syrians would mistreat Canadian citizens dropped in their lap by the CIA?

3

Goddamned whiney librul.

We can anticipate that it comes down to one of the following four bits of Cognitive Dissonance:

  1. Nobody could have ever anticipated that sending someone to Jordan and Syria would lead them to be tortured

  2. The USA didn’t do it, the Jordanians/Syrians did it. Obviously we never would have allowed such a thing to happen*.

  3. Hell yes we did it, because he was a fucking terrorist. Even if he wasn’t, he was probably a terrorist sympathiser and he’s lucky we didn’t just put a bullet in the back of his neck and dump his ass in a river

  4. He was tortured by the USA through proxy. We only torture the guilty, and it’s not torture, it’s ‘rendition’. Therefore, he was a terrorist.

Stay tuned for John Mace’s latest post in his acclaimed “I’m not a Dubya apologist, now watch as I apologize for Dubya in my eighth straight post” series - as soon as the instapundits tell him what to think!

-Joe

*pending Congressional approval of George “I wanna torture, lemmelemmelemmepleasethey’reonlyheathensandniggersanyways” Bush’s latest “plan”, of course. In that case it’ll be, "Fuck yes we did. And the American people approve of it. Now kiss my mandate and pass the nipple electrodes.

4

Its not torture. Its “alternative interrogation techniques”. Don’t you feel better now?

5

Go fuck yourself you ignorant asshole.

I do not condone this type of action. This guy is a Canadian citizen and we had no business sending him anywhere other than Canada if we felt we had to deport him from the US.

6

I was pretty disgusted when I heard about this case more than a year ago, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg, AFAIK. Doing this somewhat from memory, but there apparently at least 14,000 people being held incommunicado as presumed terrorist combatants at US-controlled prisons worldwide, at which more than 90 deaths have been reported, some of which apparently have occurred during overenthusiastic “alternative interrogation” sessions.

I have no idea how many may be innocent, but considering that about half (IIRC) of the persons held at Guantanamo, home of the supposed “worst of the worst” according to our Secretary of Tor- er, Defense, have been released without charge, it seems not unreasonable to think that as many as half of these anonymous prisoners may be confined for no particular reason other than bureaucratic inertia, or worse, to keep them from speaking out about their ill treatment as long as possible.

This is why I beleive any arguments about the efficacity of torture of, and whether to allow rights of habeus corpus for, persons presumed to be terrorists, are off the mark. These sorts of things must not be allowed, simply because inevitably, persons who are guilty of nothing are put through vile abuses and have their lives utterly ruined.

What’s even more disgusting, frankly, is that I have yet to hear of a single case where US officials have provided any kind of compensation, or even a simple apology, to any of the persons who they’ve imprisoned for years and then released without charge or comment. If such has been done, I’d be happy to hear it, but even if some sort of compensation or apologies have been delivered, the practice is apparently is not widespread, and would not come close to real justice for the persons abused in this way.

What kind of country that supposedly cherishes freedom and fairness locks thousands of people up for years for no good reason, then denies all responsibility for its mistakes upon their release? This is as good an example of evil as anything else I can think of. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the last five years should rightly go down as one of the most shameful periods in our country’s history.

7

Ten Facts About Guantanamo (Word Document, released by the Pentagon Sept. 14, 2006)

8

Bolding mine. From here

9

I remember my social studies (history, geography, etc.) teachers explaining that in dictatorships and the dreaded communist countries, people were disappeared in the dead of night and taken away to some secret place. Their families were never told why or where they were. Dissidents were tortured, and once they signed a fake confession, they were paraded through a “show trial” where the defendant had no rights and no chance for defense.

Those things didn’t happen here. We are a decent, moral country, and we have checks and balances to keep such abuses from happening.

That was a long time ago, but we hoped it would always be true.

10

Dude, i’m not sure if you have some history with John Mace that i’m unaware of, but i strongly disagree with your characterization of him as an unreflective apologist for Bush.

I’m an unapologetic leftist, and i disagree with John on quite a lot of issues, but i’ve never seen him say anything that would lead me to believe that he supports the sort of actions described in the OP. And he’s been very critical of Bush and the administration on numerous occasions.

There are some folks on this Board who might fit your characterization, but i don’t think he’s one of them.

11

Now THAT is a laugh. Let me know when you have an original thought, also known as “one you didn’t swipe from something you read on Kos today”. Jesus, talk about the pot and the fucking kettle.

12

What i find really impressive is these talking heads in their wonderful suits looking the camera in the eye and saying things like 'You know Cokie, extraction of fingernails is a common medical treatment. I did for my cat. And do you know why I did it to my cat? Out of love. Now how can you call that torture?"

They lie, and they lie very very well. They say the most outrageous things so reasonably. Further, nobody seems to call them on it. The interviewer tries to be neutral. It is really scary.

13

Hey, the guy was Canadian! See a lot of them in Minnesota, scary bunch, lemme tell ya!

14

Oh, you betcha. Frostbacks! :eek:

15

What is this “Kos” of which you speak? My people do not know of this thing, this “Kos”…

16

It’s a Farsi term.

17

I see. So Dave thinks we’re Canadian?

I think I may have a clue what’s happening to friend John, who seems to be the second most misunderstood poster extant.

I take him at his word on his opinions. But what happens is…

Some poster comes stomping in…I dunno, some notorious lefty type, let’s just call him 'loki (You know, most of your Norse gods were pretty uptight, but one was low-key…)

And 'loki starts in on how he’s got videotape, affidavits, still photos, signed confessions written in blood, notorized by God Almighty… to the effect that GeeDubya snatched a puppy from a little girl, skinned that puppy alive, roasted and ate it… All expressed with the appropriate degree of high dudgeon and low humor.

As one might expect, it draws a predictable thread of disapproval, dismay, and revulsion. As well it should. But then along comes John… And he has some evidence, perhaps, that the last charge is questionable, there is no forensic evidence of the Prez actually, uh, chowing down. Several pages are expended on this detail, wrangling over the admissability of the evidence, the precise definition of the act, etc. All of which pursued with John’s persistent…nay, relentless… determination to be even-handed (if it kills us all!)

Commendable. Exasperating, but commendable.

18

Why do they hate us?

19

Sure a good thing this War on Terra thing can be fought by unilateral military force. Otherwise, we might need friends and allies.

20

Who? Canadians, Syrians, or the Bushies?