Bush Administration officials refuse to confirm or deny that they torture prisoners of war (or, as they call them, "detainees"). The reason for this vagueness, they explain, is national security: If they confirm that they torture, future victims could prepare themselves against it. If they deny it, no one will be sufficiently terrified of us.
This cartoon is a riff on the parenting book "What to Expect When You're Expecting."
It has been common knowledge for centuries that torture is not an instrument of intelligence gathering, nor is it effective at doing so. It's an instrument of social control and a weapon of terrorism.
ReplyDeleteThe second part is the most revealing. The Bush Administration is worried about the US government not being adequately feared. What they don't point out is that an important component of this form of state terrorism is the Military Commissions Act and other pieces of legislation that allow the US Government to seize anyone, even US citizens, and have them subjected to the same methods.
The fact that torture is in the public discourse at all is a way to normalize it as a practice of the US government toward any of its enemies. It's not about keeping others in line, this has always about keeping the American dissident movement in check to protect the savages that now control our government, our media and our economy.
I must agree here with Michael Moore (Sicko), it's about keeping Americans locked in insecurity, fear, chronic sickness and terror.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I want to make that clear, I'm not arguing that the state of American society has been a comprehensive conspiracy to get us that way. This is the result of a comprehensive world view that blocks progress toward 'a more perfect union' at every single step.
When your constituency believes in Intelligent Design over biological sciences, coupled with a mass education system that has failed to produce a majority of people that even know our own history, just about every issue is open for renewed debate: the holocaust, global warming, risks of nukular power, the historical context of our own constitution, the basic rule of law.
The fundies that put in Reagan and Bush have irrevocably wounded humanity. The problem with the 21st Century is that there is no America of 1941 in existence to carve out a piece of the world for liberal democracy. Imagine if the US hadn't been a part of World War II? The Soviets would have been the sole power: Looking at the resources of China, that's perhaps what we're facing after our German Solution.
Condi as "The Gimp"
ReplyDeleteYou rule, Ted
These torture sessions are being taped, and the tapes aren't being accounted for. I suspect they're being forwarded to Dumbya and Cheney and duped for especially generous Republican contributors. I have no doubt that hard-core right-wingers are getting off on the idea of torture - so how much more thrilled will they be to actually watch it?
ReplyDeleteZed’s dead, baby, Zed’s dead.
ReplyDeleteVery good, except Bush lackeys are forbidden to use the word "evolve".
ReplyDelete