Torture: Immoral, evil, wrong & bad
(but okay with the Wall Street Journal)
I don't care if someone else is doing something more bad than I am. What I
care about is what I am doing. If what I do is wrong, it's wrong. End of story.
And I don't want to be compared to the world's evil to justify my own evil,
as in: They do it worse, so why aren't you talking about them? When freepers
cite the torture and abuse of other governments (or the evils of terrorism)
as reason for why our torture isn't so bad after, my eyes roll over so far
back in their sockets that I am blinded for a moment. Or is that blind rage?
I didn't comment last week on Amnesty International's report of the torture
at Gitmo as being the "Gulag of our time." That Bush is leading America
towards being run by a government based on authoritarian terror isn't news.
While the fact that someone else has reported (once again) on the widely known
torture policies of the Bush government, the reaction of the right to these
charges is so evil that it must be commented upon.
The Wall Street Journal's views on torture below the fold...
Here's how the Right-Wing Wall Street Journal (a "news"paper) headlined
its editorial yesterday on the Gitmo-Gulag report:
Amnesty's 'Gulag'
A "human rights" group's pro-al Qaeda propaganda.
I don't want to get too caught up in details here, but holy shit - did the
Journal call a report condemning torture propaganda for terrorists? The headline
is crazy. Saying the United States is wrong to torture has nothing to do with
some band of terrorists. It's what the US is doing that matters. What we are
doing.
The Journal is acting like when a kid who gets caught cheating on a math test
telling the teacher that some other kid wasn't taking turns at recess. No teacher
falls for that, and no American should either.
The Journal continues by (kinda) quoting William Schultz, the head of Amnesty
International's US branch:
"Our list [of American officials who are apparent high-level
architects of torture]," as Mr. Orwell--er, Mr. Schultz--puts
it, is too long to print in full. But it includes Donald Rumsfeld,
Douglas Feith and William Haynes at Defense; Alberto Gonzales, John
Yoo, Jack Goldsmith, and Patrick Philbin from Justice; Tim Flanigan,
just nominated to be Deputy Attorney General; George Tenet, former
head of the CIA; and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, former commander
of U.S. forces in Iraq.
The Journal wraps up by focusing on the Gitmo-Gulag analogy. Rather than deny
that the US is currently in the torture business (because they can't), the
Journal makes the point that our level of torture just isn't as bad as that
of torturers past:
It's old news that Amnesty International is a highly politicized
pressure group, but these latest accusations amount to pro-al Qaeda
propaganda. A "human rights" group that can't distinguish
between Stalin's death camps and detention centers for terrorists who
kill civilians can't be taken seriously.
source
Here's what the Journal doesn't get. Any torture by the US is such a terrible
thing that there can be no level of hyperbole too extreme or that misses the
point. We are America. And torture goes against everything America stands for.
When we, when America, becomes an agent of torture every American has a moral
duty of outrage. And that's just what Amnesty International's report was: A
statement of outrage.
It never matters how bad you think the person you torture is - because it
is you who is doing the torture. You become a torturer, regardless if who you
are torturing is good or bad. By torturing it is you who has become dog shit
in the eyes of civilized society.
That the Journal advocates for the torture of anyone is immoral, evil, wrong & bad.
Not only that, but it's downright un-American.
The Amnesty International
report
My blog: PoliticalSmartAss.com