OP
rmcrobertson
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- Thread Starter
- #21
Ah, the relentless bucket joke of Freud's!
Draping underpants over someone's head would not, most likely, be torture. Regrettably, merely draping underpants over someone's head IS NOT THE FRICKIN' ISSUE.
For the forty-eleventh time: the issue here is that our government actively, systematically encouraced the use of what they euphemistically called, "physical coercion."
This included, more or less in ascending order: sleep deprivation; tying prisoners up in interesting ways and leaving them there; threats that included dogs, mock firing squads, and sticking guns in prisoners' mouths; beatings; anal rape with sticks; a drowning-like torture called in Latin America, if memory serves, "the airplane;" beating prisoners to death on several occasions.
Ancillary to this has been a pattern of shipping prisoners to countries such as Egypt with the tacit understanding that they would be unequivocally tortured (a violation of at least two international treaties to which we are signatory), "preventative detentions," denial that many of our prisoners have any protection whatsoever under the Geneva accords--and, most recently, the charming assertion that even United States citizens may be arrested without warrant or probaable cause, held indefinitely, refused any and all counsel, and denied even the right to confront their accusers and know the charges against them.
You may find this sort of thing the equivalent of a frat prank; I do not. You may find it the sort of realpolitik that us liberals just need to git used to; I find this sort of morbid cynicism reprehensible. I find it revolting that, for the first time, an American administration has publicly advocated torture, the abrogation of the Geneva Accords, and the Constitution.
But then, I was taught some time ago that my country did not do this sort of thing, which was one of the many reasons that I should be proud of being an American. I was taught, too, that Americans did not pussyfoot around and try to cover up with words.
I suggest, gentlemen--and I wish that I were exaggerating--that you seriously consider the many ha-has and ho-hos, the thigh-slapping fun, the trivializations of suffering, that so many in European armies must have enjoyed circa 1937 or so.
Draping underpants over someone's head would not, most likely, be torture. Regrettably, merely draping underpants over someone's head IS NOT THE FRICKIN' ISSUE.
For the forty-eleventh time: the issue here is that our government actively, systematically encouraced the use of what they euphemistically called, "physical coercion."
This included, more or less in ascending order: sleep deprivation; tying prisoners up in interesting ways and leaving them there; threats that included dogs, mock firing squads, and sticking guns in prisoners' mouths; beatings; anal rape with sticks; a drowning-like torture called in Latin America, if memory serves, "the airplane;" beating prisoners to death on several occasions.
Ancillary to this has been a pattern of shipping prisoners to countries such as Egypt with the tacit understanding that they would be unequivocally tortured (a violation of at least two international treaties to which we are signatory), "preventative detentions," denial that many of our prisoners have any protection whatsoever under the Geneva accords--and, most recently, the charming assertion that even United States citizens may be arrested without warrant or probaable cause, held indefinitely, refused any and all counsel, and denied even the right to confront their accusers and know the charges against them.
You may find this sort of thing the equivalent of a frat prank; I do not. You may find it the sort of realpolitik that us liberals just need to git used to; I find this sort of morbid cynicism reprehensible. I find it revolting that, for the first time, an American administration has publicly advocated torture, the abrogation of the Geneva Accords, and the Constitution.
But then, I was taught some time ago that my country did not do this sort of thing, which was one of the many reasons that I should be proud of being an American. I was taught, too, that Americans did not pussyfoot around and try to cover up with words.
I suggest, gentlemen--and I wish that I were exaggerating--that you seriously consider the many ha-has and ho-hos, the thigh-slapping fun, the trivializations of suffering, that so many in European armies must have enjoyed circa 1937 or so.
