Glad you're here! It's so discouraging and deeply horrifying. Just makes me sick at heart. All over again. Makes me feel the same sense of utter revulsion I felt when the Abu Ghraib photos were released. Sick at heart.
This is one of those absolutes, at least for me. There aren't many, but I just don't see any way we compromise on this. Or sand it down, or dress it up, or call it something else, or cherry pick and tweezer it to death. I feel the same way about a woman's right to choose. It's a non-negotiable. PERIOD. Here, too, without question: torture is a crime, a sin, and against the Geneva Conventions. PERIOD. There IS no justification. I don't CARE what the rationale is, or how badass it looks on "24."
It's - when we say we're Americans, and we stand for American values and all that assorted blah-blah-blah, well, torture does NOT fit in there. Doesn't qualify. Has no rule and no place in there. That's not an American value. So since bush/cheney has deliberately and even proudly flouted that and made it so anyway, then we can't really expect to be taken seriously, tromping all over the world with our guns and ammo, trying to tell other nations how to do or be whatever. We have squandered the moral high ground. At least this report makes it official - as far as it goes, bless its little redacted heart. Just the same as - if you're all for helping the rich and screwing the poor, hungry, and homeless, and you aggressively cut funding to programs for people in serious and genuine need, or turn a deaf ear to their appeals, and snub them as little more than lazy moochers, then you better damn well not prance around congratulating yourself for what a Christian you supposedly are. Cuz you're NOT. You're anything BUT.
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