Remember the great harm done to the moral core of our nation when, according to the excited news reports following Kenneth Starr's great work in life, children were asking their parents what oral sex was? Neither do I. But children can now ask their parents what torture is, how waterboarding works, and when exactly torture is a good thing. "Mommy, we're going to play enemy combatant. Can I have some pliers to pull out Geoffrey's fingernails?"
Can I just say, to the Representatives and Senators who just voted to overturn (or allow George Bush to "interpret") the Geneva Conventions and half the Bill of Rights and I say this as mildly as I know how WAKE THE HELL UPYOU COMPLICIT FASCIST MORONS; BUSH HAS CAMPS PLANNED FOR SOME OF YOU, AND DANTE HAS A CIRCLE RESERVED FOR THE REST. Oh, and one more thing: oral sex feels GOOD. Torture HURTS LIKE HELL. Got it? The world needs more sex, less sadism. What exactly are you unclear on?
Remember when Bush, like O.J. Simpson on the trail of the real killer, was energetically searching the White House (not to mention consulting a private lawyer) to determine who had leaked Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent to the media? Neither do I. But if it had happened, wouldn't it have made sense for Bush to simply subject Cheney, Rove, Libby, Armitage and a few others to a little torture until they spilled the beans?
Of course not. The slightest threat of discomfort, and these characters would have each confessed to the leak, the Kennedy assassination, and firing the secret missile into the Pentagon from the ghost jet. Just look at what fear of a vague threat of future prosecution has brought them to. Bush and gang, terrified of prosecution for violating the War Powers Act of 1996, have rammed through Congress, just before an election, a piece of legislation that removes Habeas Corpus and retroactively legalizes war crimes a piece of legislation that will quite likely be, in part or whole, ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
http://www.counterpunch.org/swanson09292006.html