The Rank, Reeking Horror of Torturing Some Folks [View all]

[WilliamPitt]

Last edited Thu Dec 11, 2014, 02:07 PM - Edit history (1)

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)

The Rank, Reeking Horror of Torturing Some Folks
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Thursday 11 December 2014

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.

- John Lennon

"Let me put it plainly: these people do not belong on my television. They belong in prison, for the crimes of theft, torture and murder. They shattered the lives of thousands of American soldiers and millions of Iraqi civilians. They savaged the American economy paying for it all, and several of them got very rich in the process. They should be in orange jumpsuits and fetters, picking mealworms out of their gruel while shuttered in very small, very grim, very inescapable metal rooms."

I wrote that back in June of this year because I thought I knew the whole deal. I saw all the pictures from Abu Ghraib, knew about the so-called "Black Sites" where innocent prisoners were sent to be torn apart, read all the books, and listened to the words of those who endured these seven hells and lived. Quite a crowd of people, including several prisoners who cannot be accounted for to this day, did not survive to tell their tale.

I thought I knew, I really did, and then the Senate dropped their Torture Report, and we all got to hear about a guy whose dinner of hummus, pasta and nuts was pureed and then blasted up his anus in an act of violence and humiliation that isn't even the worst of what was reported. They tied prisoners to beds and made them stand on broken legs for dozens of hours. A description of one photograph of one waterboard - there were others, of course - called it "well worn." Several of the people tasked to deliver these horrors are described as having "issues" that should have disqualified them from government service altogether, including "histories of violence and mistreatment of others."

In my name. In your name. In our name.

(snip)

Back in August, President Obama - who saw this report and all of its grisly details coming a mile away - let drop the least anonymous penny in history: "We tortured some folks." Later in his remarks, the president said, "And, you know, it's important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots, but having said all that, we did some things that were wrong."

Those who tortured are patriots. Those who call it wrong are sanctimonious. Got it?

That, right there, is why this whole nightmare came to be. Not because of President Obama, but because of the soft-pedal smooshy attitude he so clearly expressed. He knew what was going to be in this report when he made those remarks - of course he did - but still chose to butter it up with "patriots" and "9/11 you guys" and "Oops." This level of institutionalized cowardice and knee-jerk ass-covering is exactly and precisely what allows sociopaths in positions of unimaginable power to run wild and bathe in the tears, blood and viscera of their victims.

In my name. In your name. In our names.

(snip)

As far as the perpetrators go, the Bush-era chieftains, the half-assed lords of war who delivered this disgrace to us all, I comfort myself with an old anecdote:

Once upon a time, there was a man who went to the news stand every morning, bought a newspaper, snarled at the front page, and then threw the paper away in anger. He did this every day, day after day. After a time, the newsboy asked the man, "What is it you're looking for, sir?"

"The obituaries," said the man.

"But sir," said the newsboy, "the obituaries are on page 30."

"When the bastard I'm looking for dies," said the man, "it'll be on the front page."

Thin gruel, to be sure, but time always wins in the end. There will be justice done, on this side or the other.

The whole thing: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/27939-the-rank-reeking-horror-of-torturing-some-folks