Pete talks about a moral disgrace. You know what is a moral disgrace? Conflating innocent people with those who "want to slit the throats and watch innocent Americans bleed and die." Here's also what is a disgrace: that an American administration knowingly seized individuals who were innocent of any crime, tortured and abused hundreds of them, and lied about it. That Dick Cheney and George W. Bush decided in advance to bypass the Congress in setting clear, legal, constitutional rules for the handling of detainees in the war on terror and so ended up in the Gitmo mess. That, in a time of war and great peril, Bush and Cheney decided to go on an executive branch power-grab because they knew full well that what they intended to do - torture their way to "intelligence" - was illegal. That the Bush policy has neither brought anyone to justice nor provided a decent alternative to habeas rights and poisoned the reputation of American justice for a generation around the world. That the United States coopted former Soviet prison camps in Eastern Europe in order to perpetrate Gestapo methods of interrogation. That's a disgrace.
Something went deeply wrong in this country after 9/11. We were dazed and angry. We wanted revenge and we wanted someone to pay. Unfortunately we had just "elected" a band of sociopaths to lead this country and said sociopaths seized the opportunity at hand. It is a deeply depressing reality that we're going to have to come to terms with. The country finally seems to have regained its senses, it will be interesting to see how we react as the curtain is peeled back further.
In a related vein Digby writing about the Senate Armed Services Committe hearing on torture today is worth a read as well .
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