Thoughts On Torture
I'm not a torture moralist. If it was an effective battlefield or intelligence tool I would probably have used it without a second thought. I'm a torture pragmatist. It. Does. Not. Fucking. Work.
Yet, after John Yoo tortures both logic and any concept of a moral law to expand the definition, then, without any chance of challenge, declares the President to be empowered to break all previous and existing laws of the United States, and the World Court. When he empowers the government with the ability to break any and all laws to the point of sadistic, ineffective and base cruelty and does so without challenge. When our government has reached a point of depravity to where John (drape them marble titties!) Ashcroft becomes the sole voice of restraint and reason, one simply must admit that things have gotten too far the fuck out of hand.
The ACLU has called for a special prosecutor. This is too far gone. This situation shows that the whole mechanism of government in this country has been debased to the point where our jurisprudence system or our own simple humanity are not to be trusted. It's time for The Hague, or some other system of law, where we can expect it to be adjudicated by rational, and moral minds.
We don't seem to have those at hand in this country anymore.
They should be brought to a bar of justice that has the respect and trust of the world. That court does not sit in an America of secret prisons, extraordinary renditions, and torture corrupting the highest levels of power. An honest court, concerned with the rule of law and operating in an open and free society is not something we can say we have anymore without bouncing the needles of the polygraph like the tassles on the tits of a Fairbanks stripper at a lumberjack birthday party.
3beez
posted by The Minstrel Boy at 1:22 PM
8 Comments:
WORD. (Sob.......)
Go Minstrel Boy! I agree with you 100%. The ACLU's heart is in the right place, but they will have to search like Diogenes to find an honest prosecutor in the US.
what really frightens me is how little time it has taken to turn our system inside out and upside down. i've been trying to work out in my thoughts just when and where it began.
i fiqure it started during the clinton years when any and everything was used and abused to hamstring the democrats and the president. the small whittling away of the way things should be done, morally and ethically(at least in public)
at the same time, there seems to have been a planned dumbing down of people. the bread and circus, tabloid/freakshow/springer becoming not only the norm but just about the ONLY thing readily available. junk food of the mind, clogging our senses and dulling our common sense and civility. the smart ass judge shows, the culture of the rude/witty quip.
then 9/11 qand the force feeding of fear and bigotry. that made it so much easier. tho, i do think, they would have found some way to start a war without 9/11. so much money and power to be made by souless old men wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross with their mouths stuffed with apple pie as they send mom's kids off to die.
yes, it's time to admit the truth of it and bring those responsible out into the open in front of the world.
but, it just isn't going to happen.
and my heart hurts for all of us, everywhere.we could hold a man accountable for a blow job but not for war crimes.sick isn't it?
my little rant.
"...tassles on the tits of a Fairbanks stripper at a lumberjack birthday party."?
You've obviously been hanging out in some unusual places.
And, yes, the Hague would be appropriate. If you recall, we hanged, among others, a Japanese general for atrocities committed by his men even though he specifically issued orders against those actions.
we have a thick file of precendent cases where american servicemen were imprisoned, branded, whipped, and drummed out of the force for the exact things these people were ordering to be done.
the excuse, what makes this different is that this time, they were ordered.
great. now they are using the albert speer defense.
the speed of the descent into full on depravity amazes me too. not that the folks who were doing it became that way, they were there already. they had to be to use torture as their first and favorite tactic. bush has a history of mean spirited cruelty. it was well documented. i'm still shocked at colin powell. i truly expected better from him.
what amazes me is the silent capitulation of all others. i thought that one of the main lessons we learned from dealing with the aftermath of the nazis was that for evil to flourish it only requires that good men do nothing.
so far, a lotta nothing's what we have, and it ain't plenty for me.
i'm still shocked at colin powell. i truly expected better from him.
I'm not. I still haven't gotten over the fit he pitched when Clinton wanted to integrate gay people into the military. He's by no means the saint he makes himself out to be. Wasn't he involved somehow in the hush-up investigation the Army conducted over the My Lai massacre?
And you're right about the lesson learned. Germany also rapidly descended into depravity that shocked the rest of the world when they learned its full extent.
It's time for The Hague, or some other system of law, where we can expect it to be adjudicated by rational, and moral minds.
If only.
Yes MB, the silent capitulation is most shocking. Most were lapdogs to power.
Very few have stood out as standing up in this fiasco. I am thinking of the early challenge of Lt. Ehren Watada; the commander/attorney at Gitmo recently sentenced. Not men high in the chain of command, for certain. Not men who get much print, either.
How did our system of jurisprudence become so debased? This is a powerful statement: "Our own humanity is not to be trusted."
What then? As you suggest, we must outsource even that.
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