By PHILLIPE AND JORGE
July 25, 2007 3:44:56 PM
We all know that the list of bad results emanating from the Bush administration’s poorly conceived and even more poorly executed foreign policy and “War on Terror” is long and growing longer. That these acts that have eroded and badly damaged the heretofore deserved reputation that this country has long enjoyed in many quarters, as a source of freedom and fairness in the world, is truly infuriating (and simultaneously, depressing).
A front page story in Monday’s New York Times touches on one such issue — Guantanamo Bay. When one mentions our military base in Cuba, a number of thoughts come to mind. One is the torture. Torture — not “aggressive interrogation techniques.” Using the bullshit phrase “aggressive interrogation techniques” is, to P&J, a bit like the constant referencing of “the N-word” regarding last week’s Papeet-gate saga. The word is “nigger.” The administration of George W. Bush sanctions torturing human beings in the name of the United States of America, and then says it’s not torture.
Apparently, the belief is that the American public has become so incredibly dumbed-down that it’ll believe up is down, two and two is five, and torture is merely an “aggressive” technique.
More so than torture, one associates Guantanamo with a broad suspension of civil liberties; people being held indefinitely without charge; the presumption of guilt, rather than innocence; paper-thin evidence that cannot be challenged; and detainees being regularly denied access to legal representation. In other words, this is the sort of hell we have come to associate with despotic regimes, totalitarian governments, and the oeuvre of Franz Kafka. And we’re running this show, the liberty-and-justice-for-all gang, the U.S. of A.
More:
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid44363.aspx
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