Instead of shame and humiliation that this government condoned and
defended myriad human rights violations, one of the architects of
torture, Dick Cheney says we should torture more ...
Most human beings likely believe their nation is at
least somewhat honorable as a testament to the people in the population,
but history shows that certainly is not the case. Although Americans
think this country is exceptional, it has not been honorable throughout
its history, but many people claim the past is not an accurate measure
of the nation today. However, if one considers the deceit and
mistreatment of Native Americans, the country’s shameful history of
slavery, and the revelations the nation is guilty of humanitarian abuses
at home and abroad, it is impossible to dispute this is a nation of
barbarians; particularly due to the overwhelming support from so-called
religious people for torture.
After the Senate Intelligence Report revealing the
extent of torture authorized and supported by the Bush administration
was released, the last thing one expected was both support among the
population and avid defense of the barbaric prisoner mistreatment by
former government leaders. Instead of shame and humiliation that this
government condoned and defended myriad human rights violations, one of
the architects of torture, Dick Cheney and several shrub sycophants hit
the airwaves defending
torture with overwhelming support from the religio-wuingnuts. This is
particularly disgusting when one considers that Cheney actually approved
of torturing detainees that were innocent and evangelicals still
supported the human rights abuses.
When asked directly if he approved of torturing
innocent captives, Cheney said “I have no problem as long as we achieved
our objective (preparing
for the Iraq War). Cheney was reminded of a detainee who was chained to
the wall of his cell, doused with water, and froze to death while in
C.I.A. custody. It turned out it was a case of mistaken identity, but in
Cheney’s, and a majority of christian’s minds, the torture and death of
detainees that turned out to be innocent “do not present a problem as
long as we achieve our objective.” Cheney said “We got authorization
from the pretender and authorization from the Justice Department to go
forward with the program.
Cheney was reminded that America prosecuted Japanese
soldiers in World War II for waterboarding American prisoners, and
without remorse he claimed that “it is a really cheap shot to even try
to draw a parallel between the Japanese who were prosecuted for
waterboarding after World War II and what we did with waterboarding
individuals;” including the 25% of innocent muslims who were abused in
custody. Innocent muslims, by the way, that Cheney claimed were not
American citizens and thus unlawful combatants, terrorists, and people
who committed unlawful acts of war against the American people. It is
noteworthy that America invaded and occupied a sovereign nation, so how
25% of admitted innocents were “unlawful combatants” is beyond the pale;
particularly when innocents were “egregiously tortured” to justify invading Iraq.
According to a recently released Department of
Justice document, “There was constant pressure on the intelligence
agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get information
(to justify invading Iraq) out of the detainees, and when people
committing torture kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney’s and
Rumsfeld’s people to push harder.” This is in spite of “Cheney’s and
Rumsfeld’s people being told repeatedly, by the CIA and many other
private operatives (at black-op sites) that there wasn’t any reliable
intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and
Saddam, and that no such ties existed because the two were fundamentally
enemies, not allies.”
Still, the shrub, Cheney, and senior shrub junta
officials “blew that off and kept insisting that the interrogators
weren’t pushing hard enough, that there had to be some way to get that
information;” like pushing harder. Cheney also claimed that the some of
the innocent persons who found themselves in the CIA’s torture programs
were “put in places where we could proceed” with the devastating
interrogation program find out what they knew. The travesty, besides
torturing human beings, is that an overwhelming percentage of Americans
agree with Cheney and think torture is justified.
According to a recent Washington Post/ABC poll,
the despicable majority of Americans believe the shrub and Cheney and do not
classify the CIA’s techniques as torture; 59% of the barbaric
population thought the inhumane treatment and illegal acts of torture
were justified. If those statistics are not shameful enough, America’s christians were more likely than the general public to support acts of
torture. According to the polling, 69% of white evangelicals believe the
CIA treatment was biblically justified, compared to just 20% who said
it was not. It gets worse as fully three-quarters (75%) of white
non-evangelical protestants said CIA treatment was justified; white catholics were just as barbaric and believe the treatment was justified
by a 66-23% margin.”
The idea that millions of christians in the United
States believe in, and support, torture as a justifiable christian
activity belies their claim to be “followers of christ.” It is true that
there are historical examples of christians embracing brutal
interrogation techniques, but it is now, like it was then, in opposition
to christ’s teachings. In 1252, Pope Innocent IV formally sanctioned
torture as a means of extracting “truth” from “suspects” during the
Medieval Inquisition, and the cult perpetuated the practice during the
Spanish Inquisition. In both cases, people the cult “suspected” were heretics (terrorists) and innocent were strapped to a rack and had their limbs ripped off.
Many of the religio-wingnut leaders who support
torture justify the CIA and the shrub junta acts of inhumanity
cited the old testament as a valid reason to torture muslims regardless
if 25% of them were innocent. Their contention is that in order to save
lives, innocent muslims had to “forfeit their right to life and
dignity,” even though torturing “unlawful (innocent) enemy combatants” did not
save lives. But that is apparently the privilege of being an American
evangelical; free reign to abuse muslims at will and with
government-authorized immunity from prosecution. Hopefully the rest of
the world’s governments take legal action against this exceptional
nation’s former leaders; whether they claim bible immunity or not. One
thing is now abundantly clear and beyond refute; there are very few
followers of christ in America and it is exactly as one might expect
from a barbaric population.
No comments:
Post a Comment