Torturous

Of course it's torture, even Ari Fleischer says so now. He's equivocating that it should never be done but sticking his chin out that it works. It's actually humiliating to watch grown men covering their collective asses in such a grudge-holding, adolescent way. Where do you stand, Ari, outside of the politics of it all?

Which is not to say that the Obama Administration is above using politics to combat politics. Cheney opens his mouth, Obama points to prosecutions up the foodchain, leaving the minions alone. Especially as someone leaks potentially damaging info about Rep. Jane Harman, who's on record with a letter to the then Presidente Bush opposing his use of torture in America's name.

This after destroying memos written by longtime diplomat Philip Zelikow opposing the legal reasoning of White House torture-justifiers Jay S. Beybee and John Yoo.

This after using torture to drum up a false link between al Qaida and Saddam Hussein to justify the lie of their invasion of Iraq. To enable more of their snowballing violence.

Yes, waterboarding is torture, as we've defined it in punishing other countries for war crimes, but Cheney and the rest of his morons didn't even know or care:

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

Let us first note that if this is true, the decision to abandon the Geneva Conventions was based on literally criminal ignorance. Anyone with a degree in history or a Google account could have found out any of these things if they had wanted to. I did, as soon as the cascade of evidence of abuse and torture unleashed by Bush came to light. And let us note secondly that this is not a defense. For Tenet to have proposed a criminal torture technique without inquiring as to its history and past use is a function of criminal incompetence. For that, a man who presided over the worst attack on the homeland in US history and compounded it with destroying the moral standing of the US was awarded a Medal of Freedom.

It's a new world now, thanks to the election of Barack Obama as leader of the generations on down and everyone older who's ready to change business as usual around the world. The accoutrements of Western Civilization have spread everywhere and continue to spur liberal thought, as in more personal freedom and interpersonal understanding. What's left are the reactionaries and jihadists on either side, and I just don't think they can grow in any lasting fashion while the rest of the world increasingly pulls together in greater scale than ever in human history.

Take it from the calmest man on Earth:



I mean, what the hell are we doing having the word waterboarding now used so often everyday speech?

Thank the Bush-Cheney Administration. This time there's no one else for them to blame.