In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
READ
Legalizing Torture
And this is just the last 2 paragraphs:
There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of "national security." For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy -- even if it is true, as the administration maintains, that its theories have not been put into practice. Even on paper, the administration's reasoning will provide a ready excuse for dictators, especially those allied with the Bush administration, to go on torturing and killing detainees.
Perhaps the president's lawyers have no interest in the global impact of their policies -- but they should be concerned about the treatment of American servicemen and civilians in foreign countries. Before the Bush administration took office, the Army's interrogation procedures -- which were unclassified -- established this simple and sensible test: No technique should be used that, if used by an enemy on an American, would be regarded as a violation of U.S. or international law. Now, imagine that a hostile government were to force an American to take drugs or endure severe mental stress that fell just short of producing irreversible damage; or pain a little milder than that of "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." What if the foreign interrogator of an American "knows that severe pain will result from his actions" but proceeds because causing such pain is not his main objective? What if a foreign leader were to decide that the torture of an American was needed to protect his country's security? Would Americans regard that as legal, or morally acceptable? According to the Bush administration, they should.
This isn't an op-ed piece. This is an official Washington Post. After 3 years of not only treating Bush with kid gloves, but practically bending over backwards to ignore how heinus his reign has been; the Washington Post finally had too much moral repugence from the White House.
Joe Biden, who also spent much of the past 3 years trying to excuse some of Bush's atrocities sums it up:
"There's a reason why we sign these treaties -- to protect my son in the military," Senator Biden growled at Mr Ashcroft. "That's why we have these treaties.
"So when Americans are captured, they are not tortured. That's the reason, in case anybody forgets it."
- rob 5:14 PM - [PermaLink] -
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