Torture is as torture does

Yeah, so I've been quiet the last few days because, really, what more can I say about what's going on. Reagan is dead. That's the only news that you need to know.

Okay, not really. I haven't been brainwashed yet. Thank goodness for The Daily Show, or I would never get any real news. If you missed it, be sure to catch the repeat tonight. The fact that Ashcroft can get up in front of Congress and say the shit that he said, truly boggles the mind. Biden gets major props for getting to the heart of the matter. ETA Billmon, as usual, does an excellent job of breaking down Asscroft's time in front of Congress.

Even if you think torture is valid or you don't care about brown skinned people getting beat up because it doesn't affect you or whatever, all that is completely beside the point. I mean, you are wrong and shit, but that's okay. We allow that in this great nation of ours. The point of abiding by the Geneva Convention and agreeing to not torture prisoners of war is so that when our own soldiers are captured, they will be treated properly. I won't pretend for a moment that our leaders or our armed forces actually care about the rights and mental well being of the people we are fighting against. Because that would be silly and naive. However, we promised to follow a certain protocol and then broke our promise. Just like we agreed to not take pre-emptive action and then did it anyway. We always talk about being this great country with freedoms and opportunity and gosh, howdy-doo, we are an example the rest of the world should follow. So anyone who is spouting off about how this isn't a big deal and we should get to act this way because we are at war should keep their mouths shut when American soldiers are captured and tortured by opposing forces. We are leading by example and our examples suck.

And even if you don't buy any of that, explain to me how beating a man until he suffers brain damage helps the war on terror. If you turn his brain to mush, he can't fucking tell you anything. Of course, the man in this case is actually an American soldier who was undercover at the base during a training mission. The only reason he isn't dead is that the soldiers finally figured out he was an American and stopped beating him. How horrible for this man, to serve his country and become a victim of it's new hypocritical policies. We haven't heard about this in the media because...well, torture is part of war? Reagan is dead, therefore nothing else is news? We don't like to think about bad things? I don't know. All I know is that the Right Wing mouthpieces act as if torture is not a big deal when it is happening to other people. I have a feeling that just can't figure out how to spin this in a way that doesn't make them look like the hypocritical assholes they are. So they just keep quiet and hope it goes away.

How about we raise our voices and hope they go away?

Special props to This Modern World for the above link.