I wonder if the people living in those fascist countries during WWII knew when they had crossed the line. I mean was there a single moment in time that crystallized in their minds, that oh boy we have reached a new level. I wonder if the lines had become so blurred that they could not distinguish when they had crossed the line. As history has shown, once that line was crossed there was no turning back, anything was possible. Well, for those who don’t know or are too blurred eye to notice, we have crossed a dangerous line. The Bush Administration has badgered, lied, and coerced the American public and lawmakers to turn a blind eye to torture. Make no mistake about it, we are torturing people.
President Bush today delivered a stern defense of the nation’s detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects, saying that lives have been saved by the aggressive questioning of suspects and that any interrogation tactics have been in compliance with the country’s “international obligations” and been fully disclosed to “appropriate members” of Congress.
Faced with a backlash over a secret Justice Department memo that some lawmakers say authorized the use of torture, Bush said in a brief statement today that Americans expected the administration to protect them from future terrorist attacks. Washington Post
Using the justification that we are saving lives, this President has placed us on a kamikaze flight that will only end in our self-destruction. The destruction won’t come from some unnamed faceless terrorists, but from the cancer that has been created from within. Fear has replaced rational thinking and so everyone has turned a blind eye to the ugliness that the war on terror has become.
“I have put this program in place for a reason, that is to better protect the American people,” Bush said. “There are highly trained professionals questioning these extremists and terrorists. We have professionals who are trained in this kind of work that are going to get the information to protect the American people.”Washington Post
The President is not being truthful when he makes this statement because we had no professionals trained in torture techniques, remember we didn’t do torture until the President authorized it. We had to contact our more nefarious allies to get some torture tips and instructional videos. And once again he is hiding behind the disingenuous lie that torture saves lives. How long are we going to live under the threat and the fears of 9/11, yes Americans were killed but not to the level that we have to accept these measures quietly. The death of 2,000 Americans means we have to give up our rights and our freedoms, that we now condone torture? I don’t think so, the death toll would have to be a lot higher for me to surrender these quietly.
With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away.
“We were getting asked about combinations — `Can we do this and this at the same time?'” recalled Paul C. Kelbaugh, a veteran intelligence lawyer who was deputy legal counsel at the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center from 2001 to 2003. NY Times
If we allow this to continue in our name, then we are no better than those we prosecuted after WWII. They also claimed to just be following orders. We have crossed the line of morality and just because they parade out “Christian leaders” who condone it doesn’t make it right. Remember the Nazis had religious people excusing their behavior as well; they were good Christian folk who allowed the destruction of millions. There will always be those who will misquote scripture to condone their own agendas in the name of God. God does not condone torture of any human no matter what their race, culture, or religion. It amazes me how silent the voices of God’s ambassadors are as America continues its rapid descent into the abyss. They meet in Salt Lake City to discuss abortion, but can’t spare a moment to discuss the torture of God’s creation and their brothers.
The destruction that resulted in the Holocaust wasn’t started all at once, I’m sure there was a gradual progression from a little “enhanced interrogation” to “holocaust”. Once we accept torture as an acceptable treatment of our fellow human beings what is there to stop of us from committing more heinous acts. Where will it end, after we have destroyed a million Arab heathens (terrorists) for the sake of democracy? Oh and by the way they won’t be needing this oil they so generously left us.
I’m sorry, but just taking the word of George W. Bush is not enough for me. If he says we are not torturing people, this will ease the consciences of some enough to sleep at night, I on the other hand am not so trusting of a man who deliberately lied to invade a country so he and some of his Neo-Con friends could experiment with their empire building ideas. Well, if the President said it; I’m sure there were those in Germany who said the same thing. No my friends we have to let this President and any future President know that we will not stand for torture of any humans, not because it does or doesn’t work but because it is wrong, immoral, and inhumane. We raise a giant fuss about Michael Vick and his dogs, yet allow people to be tortured by our government and let out not a yelp. I’m sure those dogs went down with more bark and bite then we are. We all should feel a little bit ashamed by all of this, I know I do.
Many of us believe that wrongs aren’t wrong if it’s done by nice people like ourselves. – Author Unknown
“Where will it end, after we have destroyed a million Arab heathens (terrorists) for the sake of democracy?”
It’s widely acknowledged that a million Iraqis have already lost their lives, either directly by us or indirectly through forces our invasion has unleashed. So many Arab heathens, so little time.
I don’t know if our crimes will ever meet or surpass the crimes of Nazi Germany and it’s holocaust against Jewish people, and maybe we should be careful, for now at least, not to equate the two. On the other hand, perhaps if more Germans had been willing to speak out about the atrocities they were seeing as it got worse it could have never gotten so montsrous. Maybe we should be screaming holocaust from the rafters. I don’t know. I think it’s safe to say though that Iraqi families are experiencing what they would consider a holocaust against their children, their culture, and national identity as those who haven’t yet been killed are streaming out of the country like those who fled from Germany.
Unfortunately, it looks as if only Jimmy Carter has the courage to speak up and tell it like it is. We are torturers. We have turned our backs on human rights, on international law, and worst of all, we as citizens fully condone it all through our silence. Shuffling along as if nothing is wrong. An entire nation…silent. An opposition leader who shows more indignation towards the protestors on the sidewalk in front of her house than she does the president who’s dragging the world toward an abyss.
Mind numbing. Heartbreaking.
Here in America, I’ve come the realize the mechanisms which formed the Third Reich and our current Fourth Reich come from the media.
It’s more than that though because what the media throws out for consumption is so mindless and so obviously one sided that it’s hard for me to see how so many could fall for that alone. And we haven’t been living in shame and defeat for years like the Germans had been post WWI. There must be something ingrained in our national psyche, a weakness or vulnerability from within our form of government that makes us so susceptable to sheepitude.
I recently heard someone say that Americans tell their kids they are geniuses and then treat them like idiots.
I think we are experiencing a societal inferiority complex that is playing out in extremely destructive over-compensation.
Whatever. We are in serious need of healing.
I thought it was the other way round. Like the government who treats it’s people like dirt and then fills their heads with visions of false superiority. Our superiority complex is definetily part of our problem. But as educated (socially) citizens go, we’re pretty near the bottom of the international scale and maybe that’s why we do all this lashing out (preemptive invading and torturing) because it’s easier to destroy what you don’t or can’t understand than it is to find the humility to reach out a hand and ask to be enlightened and educated about other cultures and what’s important and dear to them.
I think we are basically on the same track, Super.
I guess I believe that it takes a great deal of confidence to have humility. I think there is great underlying fear that we aren’t as damned special as we’ve been told. That fear, I believe, is at the basis of our acting out. We may posture and proclaim that it is the terrorist we are afraid of, but we are really our own perceived inadequacies.
My wake up only came about from an expat assignment.
I don’t think you have to met or exceed the standards set by the Nazis to qualify as a Holocaust. Besides our crusade has just begun, we still have Iran, Syria, and Lebanon to convert…
I know. But it’s a sensitive subject for so many and I still think we need to maintain a sensitivity to it. But it’s also why I said that it’s surely a holocaust to the victims of our crimes. In the end, it’s not for us to guage in any way what is and what isn’t a holocaust. At this point you are certainly right that we’ve only just got started. And I see no mechanism that can reverse that slide or drive, yet, short of a devastating military or financial collapse.
Thanks for your reply.
What kind of line did “they” cross when dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified as saving American lives?
The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.
I agree it was a line no one else has ever crossed and yet we say we are of afraid of what others will do with nuclear weapons. There have only been 2 used in the history of the world and guess who has the dubious honor…
Great diary. I worry about a tipping point in our culture. I believe you are right we have crossed a dangerous line. That we would even have a debate over torture to me is incredible. My country tortures people that is just fucked up.
Born and raised in the US-still here-actually, I’m absolutely numb from what has happened to my country. People are actually crying because of what this administration has done to America. We are America in name only.
Watching and listening while right-wing pundits sink their teeth into a handicapped twelve year-old is (horrifyingly) more of the same. The “hits: just keep on coming. This White House will just not stop using its fists on the United States.
I honestly believe, they are determined to destroy that which they can never wholly possess. People are just reeling from it. This administration; this political party has done more to destroy America than any terrorist ever could. In name only.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_and_CIA_interrogation_manuals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas
I think this is a little over the top. Using the word holocaust brings certain emotional baggage with it.
While what we face with this administration is dire in certain ways, not many of their actions are unique. Our government has a long and distinguished history in torture. The CIA having to go overseas to `learn’ torture is laughable. That article was propaganda put out by the CIA to give themselves cover. It’s `Oh, we did not even know what this stuff was until someone else explained it to us!’. It’s a pretty ironic position when you consider we TAUGHT them much of what they know.
Ever hear of School of the America’s?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas
Or how about the CIA/Army manuals?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_and_CIA_interrogation_manuals
Why do you think our neighbors to the south, with insignificant exceptions, refuse to buy into the `war on terror’? It’s because the have first hand experience with the CIA and their interrogation tactics. There are people there who still bare the scars from CIA `help’.
Who do you think taught the Shah of Iran his tricks?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK
When you use the word `holocaust’ you set a pretty high standard for yourself. What we have now is not even unique, and anybody over a certain age has seen it before. The only REAL difference is this administration admits it, even brags about it. But unique it is not.
nalbar
The fact that we can so casually dismiss what is happening is really the scary part, not the usage of the word holocaust
Yes, while the attitude towards a particular thing may be more important than a word used to describe it, words DO have meanings. The word `holocaust’ brings images with it. For me, it’s images of crowds be led to boxcars at gunpoint, and images of gassed people being dragged out like kindling to be used AS kindling in furnaces. Other people have other images when that word is used. But no matter what image, what we face with the Bush administrations use of torture does NOT reach that level. And to use the word for a `lesser level’ can be taken as diminishing what the word has come to mean.
When O’Reilly calls Media Matters `nazis’ and `Hitler like’ what do you think? When far-righters say the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is `the new SS’ how does that make you feel? Are those valid comparisons? I have noticed over the last few months a more frequent tendency of progressives to ape the tactics used by the right. Certainly the use of hyperbole from progressives has increased. But the difference between the freepers and progressives is that is ALL THEY HAVE. O’Reilly HAS to call them names, he certainly cannot explain that all MM does is play tapes of what he says. Progressives have the facts. All MM has to do is play the tape, no need to call O’Reilly Hitler.
The systematic use of torture is bad enough, the argument stands on its own. But by using a word in your title that means mass death on a societal scale you diminish torture by comparison.
Sorry to go on and on, I just wanted to explain what I meant by `over the top’. I agree with almost all you wrote, but that word.
nalbar
The connotations of the word are what baggage we bring to it, not the word. If you say holocaust to people all over the world the images will be different. The reason we have those images is that we are fed a steady diet of Jewish holocaust archival footage and media blitz.
The gist of my essay is not that we have reached the level of a holocaust that is completed, but that we are laying the groundwork because it comes in increments.
Did you see this story, in the NYT of 10/12?
The Inspector General (IG) is the body within the agency tasked with policing the CIA. You’d think that would be a contradiction, but actually, the IG has a remarkably good record of reigning in the CIA’s excesses, or at least, once they’ve been made public. But it should scare us all that the current agency head wants to “investigate”, i.e., intimidate, the IG’s office. That reeks of SS behavior.
At some point, a lot more of us are going to have to take much bigger steps to avoid fascism in this country. And wouldn’t you rather be on the end of preventing it, rather than having to oppose it from within a concentration camp? I don’t mean to be alarmist. But when a national TV network allows people to call those with liberal views “Traitors” we should all be very much alarmed, and alert.
Pick up the phone. It costs you all of five minutes to find and call your Representative in Congress, to make yourself heard, to press for change. It’s a free call, if you need it to be. Start by asking for your Rep to pass HR 811. If your vote is gone, all our battles get so much more difficult. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is a simple act. It’s free. And will do much good.
I read it and my reaction was the same. We are living in frightening times and I don’t think its over-reaction to be alarmed.