Who's for torture?

On February 3, 2005, the US Senate voted for Gonzales for Attorney General (and we thought Ashcroft was bad!! ha!!). The vote was 60 to 34. All Republican Senators voted for torture, except for Senator Burns (Montana) who missed the vote. Lieberman, Landrieu, Nelson, Nelson, Pryor, and Salazar are all Democrats who voted for torture. The rest of the Democratic Senators and Senator Jeffords (Independent) voted against torture.

From CBS News, during the hearings on Gonzales for Attorney General, Senator Graham (Republican, SC) said this about Gonzales's memo on the war in Iraq: "When you start looking at torture statutes and you look at ways around the spirit of the law, you're losing the moral high ground," Graham said. "I do believe that we've lost our way."

Well, I believe so too. So why did you vote for Gonzales? I'm confused.

Jonathan Schell writes: "Torture is not wrong because someone else thinks it is wrong or because others, in retaliation for torture by Americans, may torture Americans. It is the torture that is wrong." He also writes: "Torture destroys the soul of the torturer even as it destroys the body of his victim. The boundary between humane treatment of prisoners and torture is perhaps the clearest boundary in existence between civilization and barbarism. Whether the elected representatives of the people of the United States are now ready to cross that line is the deepest question before the Senate as it votes on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales."

Well, I would say that our Senate failed the "civilization" test with this vote.

And from a NYT article "Following a Paper Trail to the Roots of Torture" by Mr. Kakutani (dated 2/8/05) we have this gem: "On Feb. 7, 2002, President Bush signed an order that would have all manner of unreckoned consequences: "I accept the legal conclusion of the Department of Justice and determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world." Instead, prisoners at Guantánamo Bay were to be designated "unlawful combatants," who fell under rules that the administration itself would determine." ooohhhh.... tricky, huh? Call them something other than human beings, and then we don't have to follow the Geneva Conventions, and presto!!! Morality is just relative ... relative to what we want to do!!

And here's a clip from another NYT article (February 12, 2005) about the trial of Mr. Passaro, a former US soldier who was hired by the CIA to find those *unlawful combatants* in Afghanistan, and is now charged with beating a detainee to death: "Thomas McNamara, Passaro's lead defense lawyer, has officially notified the government that he will pursue a "public authority defense." Such a defense involves a claim that the defendant believed, even if incorrectly, that he was acting with the authority and approval of the government." Now where did he ever get that idea?? Next thing you know, all those Senators who voted for Gonzales will claim they are innocent of any human suffering that goes on under Gonzales's watch, since all the "so-called people" detained were really *unlawful combatants* and every one guilty of something .... no wait, we already know that isn't true .... several of those un-human were released without ever being charged with a crime. (Seems to me locking people up for a couple of years, who have never been charged with a crime or allowed to talk to their families/attorney, is in itself a CRIME. Yes, I digress.)

(And let's overlook the fact that the information obtained by torture is......... yes, that's right...... TOTALLY UNRELIABLE!!! Why is this not a surprise? Well, never mind that inconvenient factoid.)

Well, torture (per Jonathan Schell) destroys the soul of the torturers... and this is from an administration that supposedly supports *family values*..... those type of values would have to come from a Jeffrey Dalmer-Son of Sam-Adams Family type of family reunion. I condemn Gonzales for writing up such immoral slop, Bush for signing it, and the US Senate which allowed them to get away with it. Oh, and the silly saps who go out there and execute these immoral orders. I hope you silly saps (like Passaro) think about all this when you're serving time in prison.

And one more thing from BBC. Story titled "Extent of US abuse cases revealed" had this to say: "The US army says it is conducting more than 100 criminal investigations into claims of detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder, in charge of US army detainee operations, said a further 200 such investigations had already been completed."

Yes, just a "few bad apples" in a very large orchard.

"Do it in the name of heaven, you can justify it in the end..."

Heaven help us. And heaven help the poor souls who get caught up in this tangled web as victims.