In an update to his story detailing some of the most disturbing revelations about illegal and unconstitutional methods of torture used by our own government, in our own name, as revealed in the less-redacted 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report [PDF] released on Monday, Glenn Greenwald replies to those who’d written in support of such illegal behavior as follows [emphasis his]…
(1) The fact that we are not really bothered any more by taking helpless detainees in our custody and (a) threatening to blow their brains out, torture them with drills, rape their mothers, and murder their children; (b) choking them until they pass out; (c) pouring water down their throats to drown them; (d) hanging them by their arms until their shoulders are dislocated; (e) blowing smoke in their face until they vomit; (f) putting them in diapers, dousing them with cold water, and leaving them on a concrete floor to induce hypothermia; and (g) beating them with the butt of a rifle — all things that we have always condemend as “torture” and which our laws explicitly criminalize as felonies (“torture means. . . the threat of imminent death; or the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering . . .”) — reveals better than all the words in the world could how degraded, barbaric and depraved a society becomes when it lifts the taboo on torturing captives.
(2) As I wrote rather clearly, numerous detainees died in U.S. custody, often as a direct result of our “interrogation methods.” Those who doubt that can read the details here and here. Those claiming there was no physical harm are simply lying — death qualifies as “physical harm” — and those who oppose prosecutions are advocating that the people responsible literally be allowed to get away with murder.
Moreover, yesterday Greenwald took on Rep. Peter King (R-NY)’s outrageous and ignorant defense of torture and of breaking the law and disregarding the U.S. Constitution, along with the other pretend Thomas Paines out there (such as Glenn Beck), who appear to have absolutely no understanding or interest in the either the Rule of Law, the Constitution, or just how far afield they are from the actual words of Paine himself.
It’s a must-read, though mostly for folks like Beck and King who likely won’t be bothered by information that specifically undermines their own warped, twisted, sick, anti-American worldview.
We called out the torture enablers teaching at the St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis on Monday, August 24, the same day the CIA IG Report was released: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/calling-out-the-torture-e_b_269240.html?show_comment_id=29762709#comment_29762709
St. Thomas Law Professor Robert Delahunty co-wrote four of the memos with John Yoo that served as the cornerstones for the “torture memos”. If you want to read something really scary, click the May 2009 testimony of another St. Thomas Law School professor Michael Stokes Paulsen who has some very complicated legal jargon theory about executive branch power in a time of war overriding all domestic statute and international law. The bottom line is Delahunty’s colleague at St. Thomas doesn’t see anything wrong whatsoever with the CIA interrogations of prisoners: http://www.stthomas.edu/law/academics/curriculum/PaulsenSenateTestimony.pdf
Thanks for calling them out, Coleen. I hope you’ll consider to do so. These guys don’t deserve to be employed by any legitimate institution, much less be out of jail, as far as I’m concerned.
For those who don’t know, Coleen was an FBI special agent, 9/11 whistleblower and TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2002. I’ll stand by her over the torturing cowards in a heartbeat. Any time.
Go get ’em Coleen, we are all grateful for your presence.
Thanks
King is an idiot.
Not because he’s toting the “party line”.
he’s an idiot because he ignores two very important points.
1) It’s been long established policy for the United States that we renounce torture, not so much for moral purpose, but because when we torture, it places OUR TROOPS at risk for retaliatory behavior.
2) An executive branch that is free from oversight and exempt from investigation and prosecution is a precedent that Republican’s should reconsider now that a Democrat controls the executive. Precedent matters, and it covers the office, not the party occupying that office.
It should be pointed out to that idiot that it’s not the investigation that puts our troops at risk, it was the actual act of torture that does.
And the idiot needs to be damn careful what he asks for in regards to executive immunity. There’s a scary chance the moron might just get it. And it could easily blow up in his face.
How the hell do we wind up with so much stupid in Washington?
What good is power in a democracy; when that power is abused ?
America’s love affair with simple power has corrupted it’s morality until we’re unrecognizable from the “enemy” anymore. The only thing that separates us from Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin is …well in the face of stories like this nothing separates us from those regimes.
When we emulate those we have denounced as tyrants and despots, then we become them. There is no valid reason or motivation to be brutal and abandon our own values unless one is possessed by fear and wants to instill their own fear into others.
America is sick…emotionally sick. And anyone that defends this kind of behavior is ill also. It’s inhuman to justify this kind of brutality and call oneself a lover of “freedom”.
The chickens have taken to the air…they’re coming home to roost.
Let’s not forget our many MEDIA enablers of torture as well:
http://www.roryoconnor.org/blog/2009/05/12/media-torture/
http://www.roryoconnor.org/blog/2009/05/05/babes-in-tortureland/
http://www.roryoconnor.org/blog/2009/05/20/prairie-home-torture-companion/
Why is this happening with a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic House of Representatives?
Answer: The Democrats are part of the problem, and aren’t a serious alternative to the Republicans.
Vote Green. The Green Party doesn’t accept any corporate money, and represents CITIZENS’ interests. It also sends a message to the Democrats that if they don’t start representing citizens’ interests, they’ll lose more votes.
Comment#7…..Alan8
That my friend is a healthy start.
Experts have said torture doesn’t work, so why do they torture? Are they sadists?