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Clara T Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-17-05 02:08 PM
Original message
Torture Is In
Fun Bits About American Torture

In many ways, the U.S. is now just as inhumane and brutal as any Third World regime. Oh well?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

12/16/05 "SF Gate" -- -- "We do not torture." Remember it, write it in red crayon on the bathroom wall, tattoo it onto your acid tongue because those very words rang throughout the land like a bleak bell, like a low scream in the night, like a cheese grater rubbing against the teeth of common sense when Dubya mumbled them during a speech not long ago, and it was, at once, hilarious and nauseating and it took all the self-control in the world for everyone in the room not to burst out in disgusted laughter and throw their chairs at his duplicitous little head.

Oh my God, yes, yes we do torture, America that is, and we do it a lot, and we do it in ways that would make you sick to hear about, and we're doing it right now, all over the world, the CIA and the U.S. military, perhaps more often and more brutally than at any time in recent history and we use the exact same kind of techniques and excuses for it our numb-minded president cited as reasons we should declare war and oust the dictator of a defenseless pip-squeak nation that happened to be sitting on our oil.

<snip>

Torture is in. Torture is the tittering buzzword of the Bush administration, bandied about like secret candy, like a hot whisper from Dick Cheney's gnarled tongue into Rumsfeld's pointed ear and then dumped deep into Dubya's Big Vat o' Denial.

The cruel abuse of terror suspects is sanctioned and approved from on high, and we employed it in Abu Ghraib (the worst evidence of which -- the rapes and assaults and savage beatings -- we will likely never see), and we use it in Eastern Europe and Guantánamo and in secret prisons and it has caused deaths of countless detainees. And Rumsfeld's insane level of Defense Department secrecy means we may never even know exactly how brutal we have become.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11325.htm
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Shalomar Donating Member (63 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-17-05 02:15 PM
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1. Bush is "glad to have been working on it"
Didn't you love that part after he fought the torture ban for so long???
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Nikia Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-17-05 02:18 PM
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2. Maybe, this is unethical too
Why don't they just drug people? They don't have to be scary drugs, just normal sedatives. After my colonoscopy, for example, I had conversations that I didn't recall. They probably could get information out of the average person that way. There is no need to hurt people.
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bloom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-17-05 02:36 PM
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3. "How planespotters turned into the scourge of the CIA"
How planespotters turned into the scourge of the CIA

Gerard Seenan and Giles Tremlett
Saturday December 10, 2005
The Guardian

Paul last saw the Gulfstream V about 18 months ago. He comes down to Glasgow airport's planespotters' club most days. He had not seen the plane before so he marked the serial number down in his book. At the time, he did not think there was anything unusual about the Gulfstream being ushered to a stand away from public view, one that could not be seen from the airport terminal or the club's prime view.

But that flight this week was at the centre of a transatlantic row that saw the prime minister being put on the spot on the floor of the House of Commons and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, forced on the defensive during a visit to Europe. The Gulfstream V has been identified as having been used by the CIA for "extraordinary renditions" - abducting terror suspects and taking them to secret prisons around the world where they may be tortured.

The recording of flights by spotters like Paul from places as far afield as Bournemouth and Karachi has unintentionally played a significant role in helping journalists and human rights groups expose the scale of the CIA's renditions system. But his impact on such international intrigue largely passes Paul by. "It's not the CIA bit that interests us. You don't even know who owns the plane when you take down the serial number," he said, already distracted as something comes in to land through the grey drizzle. "You keep accurate logs, for your own records."

At the door of the shabby end terrace which houses the Glasgow Airport Aviation Enthusiasts Club, Paul is considering how his hobby got him tangled in such a complex web. "We know now that these planes are run by the CIA, but it's not something we set out to know," he said. "I have seen the planes land in daytime and I've seen them land at nighttime. You never see anyone get off them. Most of the time they are just coming in to refuel, but the ones coming in at night you would expect to see people getting off. But you don't - at least, I never have."...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1664149,00.html


Linked to from Morford's article...
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Clara T Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-17-05 02:42 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. It seems we have only begun
to see how widespread and brutal this network of torture has become.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-17-05 06:31 PM
Response to Original message
5. Let's all write to Morford and thank him for this fine piece.
mmorford@sfgate.com

Has everyone seen the video of the torture protests at Hunter College?



http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=44

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