There aren't many subjects I'd say I agree on with regards to Sen. McCain, but credit due to him for speaking out so clearly and honestly on CIA torture, unlike other right wing nut jobs who wanted the Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program delayed or kept secret forever.
We know what arguments defenders of "enhanced interrogation techniques" will martial in response to the newly-released report: they will claim that the techniques used weren't really torture, and that they were instrumental in acquiring valuable intelligence information that was used to prevent future terrorist attacks, capture dangerous people, and keep Americans safe.
It doesn't matter if those defenses are correct (and they almost certainly are not). It is not actually acceptable to break a person using techniques that are merely "harsh." It is the breaking that should concern us, not how it is achieved or the outcome. That is torture. Torture is wrong.
Senator and once POW John McCain Speaking torture, er I mean "enhanced interrogation"
It should go without saying, but a society in which the government subjects people to unbearable pain or intolerable threats in order to break their will and control their behavior is not a free society. Freedom requires that there be a point at which an individual can decide to oppose the state's wishes. There may be consequences to that decision, but the ability to make it matters.
Torture destroys that choice. No number of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation techniques" can hide the truth that the point of harsh interrogations is to leave their subjects with no option but to betray themselves in order to satisfy their torturers.
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTEL REPORT
Apparently, to conservative America, the only way to defeat barbarians is to become barbarians. The CIA subjected detainees to "rectal re-hydration" better know as "rectal feeding". Like waterboarding, if this is not torture, the come to my home so I can re-hydrate you through your ass - and then tell the world when done, if I tortured you or not.
If indeed it is as Dick Cheney says, then Christ was not tortured. The Jews and Romans simply used enhanced interrogation methods on him. If you're more upset at a government that tried to give Americans healthcare than a government who tortures other humans, keep calling yourselves "Christians" and watch Fox News for further instruction.
BLOGGER PROTIP: If you have to argue "ISIS is worse", then you've already lost the argument, go back to the end of the line.
I guess we're done discussing what is torture and what's not right?
FYI: If you're looking for the guys who say America's a Christian nation, they're busy right now defending torture (enhanced interrogation) and trying to take away your health insurance!
From favorite tweet from last night: "Dick Cheney wishes all of you "Season's Beatings" this holiday season. And reminds you that "Jesus is the Reason for the Treason."
NFTOS
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Roger West
