FBI 'Outraged' at US Torture
FBI Report on Torture ( 370 page pdf )
Even the FBI Is Outraged over U.S. Torture | AlterNet :
Are we Americans truly savages or merely tone-deaf in matters of morality, and therefore more guilty of terminal indifference than venality? It's a question demanding an answer in response to the publication of the detailed 370-page report on U.S. complicity in torture, issued last week by the Justice Department's inspector general.
Because the report was widely cited in the media and easily accessed as a pdf file on the Internet, it is fair to assume that those of our citizens who remain ignorant of the extent of their government's commitment to torture as an official policy have made a choice not to be informed. A less appealing conclusion would be that they are aware of the heinous acts fully authorized by our president but conclude that such barbarism is not inconsistent with that American way of life that we celebrate.
I'd say that it's more likely that the average Joe Sixpack doesn't want to believe it. Either that their government is incapable of doing such things. Or that if their government actually did torture people that it was somehow justified by 9/11. Both ideas are complete bullshit. I'd say that makes us savages by disbelief.
A few brave souls from the FBI even compiled a "war crimes file," suggesting the unthinkable -- that we might come to be judged as guilty by the standard we have imposed on others.
Perish the thought. What's next? We're going to start getting rid of our nuclear arsenal?
Superiors in the Justice Department soon put a stop to such FBI efforts to hold CIA agents and other U.S. officials accountable for the crimes they committed.
Then such superiors are guilty of aiding and abetting at the very least and deserve the same treatment.
Make no mistake folks, the Geneva conventions, of which we are a signatory do not allow torture under any circumstances. Our Constitution says that treaties, once ratified, become 'the supreme law of the land'. Even forgetting for a second that there are several anti-torture statutes currently sitting in the US Code anyway, the Geneva conventions ARE US law and became such the moment we signed the treaty. So not only are we breaking scores of US laws here we're also breaking international law and eventually when the world gets their head out of their asses, our nation will see the cost of our actions.
What I find most amusing, and by amusing I really mean sickening, about all this is that all it took for us as a nation to abandon everything we have purported to believe in and hold sacrosanct was the deaths of a mere 3000 civilians. Given that our population is 300,000,000, 3000 deaths is not even a percentage point. Can you imaging the raging shit-hole we'd all be living in right now if 1% of our population had been killed? We'd likely all have tracking devices implanted behind our ears by now.
Now we have those who are supposed to be leading our country and following our laws dickering over what 'torture' means and a supreme court 'justice' (Guess who) who claims that anything done to you before you are convicted isn't cruel and unusual punishment because you're not punished for something until after your conviction.
This is the country we live in. The supposed country of moral values and honor. The supposed light of the world. A nation of Laws, not of men. Little better than Oceania at this point.
So now, 4 years after Abu Ghraib, 5 years after the start of the war in Iraq and 9 years after Jennifer Harbury v United States, the FBI wants to come out against torture?
Too little too late, gentlemen and ladies. This is no better than that little toad Scot McClellan just now stepping up about Bush's lies. The time to have done this would have been at the beginning, when everyone was wrapped up in pseudo-patriotic fever, itching to take vengeance for the black eye we'd been given for seemingly 'no reason'.
But there was a reason, even if you choose not to recognize it. Anyone with more than two brain cells can figure it out. Hell, watch the movie 'Red Dawn' and you'll see the reason we were hit. Because people don't like outsiders coming into their nation and telling them what to do. We've been doing that all over the middle east for a lot longer than just since 2003. So when 2001 rolled around and the Bush administration ignored the "Al Qaeda Determined to Strike in the US" memo, anyone who was genuinely surprised by what happened wasn't paying attention. Now we have the temerity to occupy a country over there and expect there to not be resistance? if you think if foreign tanks were rolling up Main Street USA there wouldn't be an insurgency you're an idiot.
But I digress. My point is we reaped what we had sown, as they say and now that we've abandoned such quaint customs as our Constitution and the Geneva conventions against torture we have thrown away what ever moral high ground we might have had against nations such as China or Libya or Iran and we have got nothing out of it in return. Torturing foreigners, whether you believe they have rights or not, does not make us safer it makes us targets.
And now the FBI is stepping up to the plate? When have already created an entire generation of terrorists who hate us. Sorry, Feebs*, I don't fucking trust you. You were the ones who went around abusing national security letters as I recall, to get to pull storm trooper duty when you knew courts would never give you a warrant. If we could generate power from how fast our founding fathers are spinning in their graves because of this administration we wouldn't need fossil fuels and YOU were a part of it.
To the FBI I say, stand up. Do your damned jobs. Arrest the people who were doing the torture and the ones who ordered it. If your bosses get in the way, remember they're beholden to the law as well. It only took a few evil people to break this country. It's up to you to stand up and help fix it. So where are the indictments?
* Feebs - a colloquialism for agents of the FBI relating to the acronym.
Even the FBI Is Outraged over U.S. Torture | AlterNet :
Are we Americans truly savages or merely tone-deaf in matters of morality, and therefore more guilty of terminal indifference than venality? It's a question demanding an answer in response to the publication of the detailed 370-page report on U.S. complicity in torture, issued last week by the Justice Department's inspector general.
Because the report was widely cited in the media and easily accessed as a pdf file on the Internet, it is fair to assume that those of our citizens who remain ignorant of the extent of their government's commitment to torture as an official policy have made a choice not to be informed. A less appealing conclusion would be that they are aware of the heinous acts fully authorized by our president but conclude that such barbarism is not inconsistent with that American way of life that we celebrate.
I'd say that it's more likely that the average Joe Sixpack doesn't want to believe it. Either that their government is incapable of doing such things. Or that if their government actually did torture people that it was somehow justified by 9/11. Both ideas are complete bullshit. I'd say that makes us savages by disbelief.
A few brave souls from the FBI even compiled a "war crimes file," suggesting the unthinkable -- that we might come to be judged as guilty by the standard we have imposed on others.
Perish the thought. What's next? We're going to start getting rid of our nuclear arsenal?
Superiors in the Justice Department soon put a stop to such FBI efforts to hold CIA agents and other U.S. officials accountable for the crimes they committed.
Then such superiors are guilty of aiding and abetting at the very least and deserve the same treatment.
Make no mistake folks, the Geneva conventions, of which we are a signatory do not allow torture under any circumstances. Our Constitution says that treaties, once ratified, become 'the supreme law of the land'. Even forgetting for a second that there are several anti-torture statutes currently sitting in the US Code anyway, the Geneva conventions ARE US law and became such the moment we signed the treaty. So not only are we breaking scores of US laws here we're also breaking international law and eventually when the world gets their head out of their asses, our nation will see the cost of our actions.
What I find most amusing, and by amusing I really mean sickening, about all this is that all it took for us as a nation to abandon everything we have purported to believe in and hold sacrosanct was the deaths of a mere 3000 civilians. Given that our population is 300,000,000, 3000 deaths is not even a percentage point. Can you imaging the raging shit-hole we'd all be living in right now if 1% of our population had been killed? We'd likely all have tracking devices implanted behind our ears by now.
Now we have those who are supposed to be leading our country and following our laws dickering over what 'torture' means and a supreme court 'justice' (Guess who) who claims that anything done to you before you are convicted isn't cruel and unusual punishment because you're not punished for something until after your conviction.
This is the country we live in. The supposed country of moral values and honor. The supposed light of the world. A nation of Laws, not of men. Little better than Oceania at this point.
So now, 4 years after Abu Ghraib, 5 years after the start of the war in Iraq and 9 years after Jennifer Harbury v United States, the FBI wants to come out against torture?
Too little too late, gentlemen and ladies. This is no better than that little toad Scot McClellan just now stepping up about Bush's lies. The time to have done this would have been at the beginning, when everyone was wrapped up in pseudo-patriotic fever, itching to take vengeance for the black eye we'd been given for seemingly 'no reason'.
But there was a reason, even if you choose not to recognize it. Anyone with more than two brain cells can figure it out. Hell, watch the movie 'Red Dawn' and you'll see the reason we were hit. Because people don't like outsiders coming into their nation and telling them what to do. We've been doing that all over the middle east for a lot longer than just since 2003. So when 2001 rolled around and the Bush administration ignored the "Al Qaeda Determined to Strike in the US" memo, anyone who was genuinely surprised by what happened wasn't paying attention. Now we have the temerity to occupy a country over there and expect there to not be resistance? if you think if foreign tanks were rolling up Main Street USA there wouldn't be an insurgency you're an idiot.
But I digress. My point is we reaped what we had sown, as they say and now that we've abandoned such quaint customs as our Constitution and the Geneva conventions against torture we have thrown away what ever moral high ground we might have had against nations such as China or Libya or Iran and we have got nothing out of it in return. Torturing foreigners, whether you believe they have rights or not, does not make us safer it makes us targets.
And now the FBI is stepping up to the plate? When have already created an entire generation of terrorists who hate us. Sorry, Feebs*, I don't fucking trust you. You were the ones who went around abusing national security letters as I recall, to get to pull storm trooper duty when you knew courts would never give you a warrant. If we could generate power from how fast our founding fathers are spinning in their graves because of this administration we wouldn't need fossil fuels and YOU were a part of it.
To the FBI I say, stand up. Do your damned jobs. Arrest the people who were doing the torture and the ones who ordered it. If your bosses get in the way, remember they're beholden to the law as well. It only took a few evil people to break this country. It's up to you to stand up and help fix it. So where are the indictments?
* Feebs - a colloquialism for agents of the FBI relating to the acronym.