Ten years ago I would never have dreamed we would be in a national debate about whether torture is justifiable. It still strikes me as odd and strange how calmly we discuss this subject in our homes, our media, and especially in the Washington DC halls of power.
Torture is indefensible. Period. Those who practice it are criminals, enemies of democracy and human rights. Those who defend it are complicit, and every bit as guilty.
I know this is Kossackville. I know I'm preaching to the choir. But I don't think you're angry enough yet to do what's necessary in this situation.
This is torture we're talking about here. Prisoner stripping, head slamming, sleep depriving, testicle crushing, dog threatening, waterboarding torture. We don't debate the morality of torture in civilized societies, we prosecute it.
The lengths to which members and allies of the previous administration have gone to in order to justify their crimes is utterly sickening. It is reminiscent of Ted Bundy's electric chair eve explanation for his serial killings: pornography made him do it. Dick Cheney and his ilk are doing it now. It was the terrorists man, they forced us to become .... well .... terrorists, but it was just to protect the country! Bullshit. BULLSHIT. Ted Bundy was a murderer, plain and simple. And we have become a nation that tortures thanks to them, plain and simple.
I'm livid about this whole subject, obviously. And I want you to be livid with me. We may already have lost any semblance of the constitutional and democratic principles we are claiming to defend and propagate by the mere fact that we are still debating this. That we are letting the Ted Bundys of torture prattle on and on about what made them become international criminals. I don't care what their reasons were. Not a bit. They sold my country's founding principles out to the lowest moral bidder, and I want them imprisoned for it.
Either that, or we should pull out every single soldier we have stationed in every foreign country on Earth, discharge them and tell them to go home - because there's nothing left to defend.
Get angry, Kossacks. Please?! We should all be writing a letter a day to local papers taking torturers and apologists to task. We should be making daily phone calls to legislators telling them we want arrests and trials. We should be donating to Amnesty International and other organizations who are continuing to fight for the principles our government has abandoned.
Every other political debate loses meaning if we are to surrender in this one. Thanks for reading my rant.