Sadistic logic

There are times when I honestly just grow so exhausted at all the psychopathic depravity of this adminstration and its policies that I honestly wonder if this is what Hell is like. BE WARNED. The following summary concerning torture from the American trained Iraqi police is not for the weak of stomach:

The Observer has seen photographic evidence of post-mortem and hospital examinations of alleged terror suspects from Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle which demonstrate serious abuse of suspects including burnings, strangulation, the breaking of limbs and - in one case - the apparent use of an electric drill to perform a knee-capping.

We not only condone this sort of thing, we fund it, train others to do it and lead by example. The facts are a matter of public record. Man's inhumanity to man is being endorsed and sponsored by this administration's policies. Pure and simple. These robotic Republican lunatics can hem and haw and joke about it all they like. But torture is torture. Cruelty is cruelty. Sadism is fucking sadism. I'd go so far as to say that anyone who delights in torture enough to sport something like this should be considered a possible danger to society. Same sociopaths that would giggle over an "I Heart Attica" or "I Heart Auschwitz" t-shirt.

And only someone so fucked up as to actually get off on hurting someone would dare defend what we've been doing as "good for America", especially at the spiritual level. To anyone who would find this amusing, I question their possession of a soul:

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

This isn't taking the war to the enemy. This is beating the better angels of our nature to a bloody pulp and having a laugh about doing it. The more this country continues down a path of cruelty at all costs, the sooner the world will march to that beat, ultimately leading us to a human rights epidemic we will be too ill-equipped, morally and rhetorically, to stop. Another Rwanda. Another Yugoslavia. Is that what we want? America is supposed to be the shining light of civilization. If we're too busy inflicting suffering upon innocents, who else will take our place?

Bush-lovers have no idea the self-destructive whirlwind they're reaping here. And probably don't even care.

And while there are days (like today, having just finished reading Janet Gunter's thorough record of America's new love affair with third world sadism) that I think no one of any importance opposes these acts, I found a spark of hope in the lawyers of our nation's military.

God bless these courageous souls for taking a stand against our government's sickness. And God's curse on the twisted fucks who not only turn a blind eye, but fight passionately to continue torturing people.

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, July 27 - Senior military lawyers lodged vigorous and detailed dissents in early 2003 as an administration legal task force concluded that President Bush had authority as commander in chief to order harsh interrogations of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, newly disclosed documents show.

Despite the military lawyers' warnings, the task force concluded that military interrogators and their commanders would be immune from prosecution for torture under federal and international law because of the special character of the fight against terrorism.

In memorandums written by several senior uniformed lawyers in each of the military services as the legal review was under way, they had urged a sharply different view and also warned that the position eventually adopted by the task force could endanger American service members.