Torture is torture

[n2doc]

Torture Is Torture
Bush's 'Program' Disgraces All Americans
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, September 19, 2006; Page A21


I wish I could turn to cheerier matters, but I just can't get past this torture issue -- the fact that George W. Bush, the president of the United States of America, persists in demanding that Congress give him the right to torture anyone he considers a "high-value" terrorist suspect. The president of the United States. Interrogation by torture. This just can't be happening.

It's past time to stop mincing words. The Decider, or maybe we should now call him the Inquisitor, sticks to anodyne euphemisms. He speaks of "alternative" questioning techniques, and his umbrella term for the whole shop of horrors is "the program." Of course, he won't fully detail the methods that were used in the secret CIA prisons -- and who knows where else? -- but various sources have said they have included not just the infamous "waterboarding," which the administration apparently will reluctantly forswear, but also sleep deprivation, exposure to cold, bombardment with ear-splitting noise and other assaults that cause not just mental duress but physical agony. That is torture, and to call it anything else is a lie. It is not possible for our elected representatives to hold any sort of honorable "debate" over torture. Bush says he is waging a "struggle for civilization," but civilized nations do not debate slavery or genocide, and they don't debate torture, either. This spectacle insults and dishonors every American.

snip:

There should be no need to spell out the practical reasons against torture, but, for the record, they are legion. As Powell and others have argued, if the United States unilaterally reinterprets Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to permit torture, potential adversaries in future conflicts will feel justified in doing the same thing. Does the president want some captured pilot to be subjected to the tortures applied in the CIA prisons?

And, as has been pointed out by experts, torture works -- far too well. Torture victims will tell what they know, and when their knowledge is exhausted they will tell their torturers what they want to hear, even if they have to invent conspiracies. The president says that torturing al-Qaeda kingpins foiled serious plots against America, but how do we know those plots were real? How can we be sure that some of the detainees at Guantanamo aren't shopkeepers or taxi drivers who were snatched because Khalid Sheik Mohammed ran out of real terrorists to implicate and began naming acquaintances so he wouldn't get waterboarded again?

But we shouldn't have to talk about the practicalities of torture, because the real question is moral: What kind of nation are we? What kind of people are we?

more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091800995.html

[Atman]

1. Bush is Torture.

Torture is Bush.

.

[Dhalgren]

2. The Democratic Party, and every true patriot of this country, must

come out four-square against torture, period. This is beyond shameful. This is a disgrace. The euphemisms must stop. Torture is torture. A lie is a lie. Murder is murder. Fraud is fraud. Theft is theft. Criminals are criminals. Cowards are cowards. Greed is greed. A traitor is a traitor.

The window we have to stop the fascists is closing. The civil war in Iraq will look like a day at the beach compared to what is coming to this country...

[n2doc]

3. It is to the eternal shame of every politician who doesn't fight this

You are right. Why can't our leaders see this? Why are they so afraid to fight for this country's soul?

[Hissyspit]

4. kick