The Belgravia Dispatch: Mr. President: Don't You Dare Disband The CIA Interrogation Program: "Bush, like a petulant adolescent who risks not having his way, is threatening to shut down the entire CIA progam if his gutting of portions of Article 3 doesn't prevail through Congress. Then, the cowardly pro-torture crowd, should god forbid a terror attack subsequently occur, will blame those noted anti-American appeasers and defeatists like John Warner, Colin Powell, Jack Vessey, Lindsay Graham and John McCain for allowing the carnage."
And, speaking of the cowardly pro-torture crowd, Sully again:
"Bill Kristol urges the Republicans to campaign on torturing military detainees. It could indeed shore up parts of the base. The capitulation of neoconservatism to the evil it once fought against is now complete."
I grew up during the end of the cold war. I remember well the demarcations between us and the Soviets. We held to the rule of law; they had kangaroo courts. We obeyed, again, the rule of law (including international agreement); they could not be trusted and used torture. We believed in freedom; they used gulags to house the tortured.
Every day, I am sickedned by the rhetoric from the conservatives in this country. American values are gone--and they are waving the bloody shirt of 9-11 in our face. Dare to oppose torture, and we are terrorist appeasers. Never mind that torure is ineffective. Never mind that it is immoral. We have God's own President on board, and say what you will, George T. Bush never changes his mind. He stands on convinction. Just as sternly as he told us that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, he now stands on the right to torture possible suspects.
2 comments:
Interesting you use of "The bloody shirt". Republicans never change. For thirty years after the Civil War Republican candidates would hold up their bloody shirts from the war and use this against Democrat candidates. The Great Depression took the steam out of them, but when China fell to Mao they had their next bloody shirt it was being weak on Communism, now its Democrats are weak on terrorism. They can't win elections without using fear and paranoia.
Always a smoke screen to fool the common man into letting the wealthy steal the treasury blind.
Yeah, that was a conscious reference. You are right, they have relied on that numerous times in their (and our) history.
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