It seems widely agreed that torture --besides being immoral-- is a terrible tool if what one wants is to obtain good information. The U.S. military so determined not many years back, as I recall. And just the past week or two, we've heard the story of the Canadian citizen, rendered to torturers in Syria, who "confessed" under the pressure of torture, to having trained as a terrorist in Afghanistan, whereas it turns out that in fact he'd never even been in that country.
So if it yields no good information, how are we to understand the insistence of the Bush administration on its having the right to engage in it as part of its "war on terror"?
Before opening the question for your thoughts, let me lay out a few possibilities for consideration.
1) The Bushites somehow do not believe that it doesn't work.
2) The Bushites are so deeply possessed by their lust for power that they are drawn to torture for the sadistic jollies they get from exercizing such utter power over other human beings.
3) The Bushites think it strengthens them politically for the president to posture as the guy who will do anything --WHATEVER IT TAKES-- to protect the American people from the bad guys.
4) The Bushites have a strategy for achieving unchecked power, and that strategy involves attacking any taboo that they think they can knock down, with the belief that as limits to power such as (even) the ban on torture are eliminated, then the possibility of them being limited by anything else is greatly diminished. (I once heard it said that the reason the Bushites are so keen on drilling at Anwar is that they believed that if they could beat the environmentalists on that pristine ground, the environmental barriers to their plunder would be weakened across the board.)
Those are some possible lines of explanation.
What do you think explains the push for torture? And what is the evidence that supports that explanation?
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
Torture, terrorism, shock and awe are American values.
The US is represented by a hybrid group of "representatives" of two similar groups. I'm sure they have more in common than most think. The entire congress, sentate and administration have all voted for more military spending. They are nearly all for the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure and the death of civillians where the US or Israel carries on their wars. The American people voted for this combination of whores for military industrialists and transnational corporate and banking interests. Torture, terrorism and war have created opportunities for this nation for over the well over a century. Every doctrin since Monroe has been more militaristic and imperialistic in their goals. A good search through the national archives and federal register would show that this is obvious. Most Americans are oblivious to any country outside of their own and don't care what the hitmen pretending to be representatives have ordered in order to maintain the "American way of life".
"The CIA is not now nor has it ever been a central intelligence agency. It is the covert action arm of the President's foreign policy advisers. In that capacity it overthrows or supports foreign governments while reporting 'intelligence' justifying those activities. It shapes its intelligence, even in such critical areas as Soviet nuclear weapons capability, to support presidential policy. Disinformation is a large part of its covert action responsibility, and the American people are the primary target of its lies." -- Ralph McGehee former CIA intelligence analyst "Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA"
Zbigniew Brzezinski's "The Grand Chess Board" and PNAC publications are a good roadmap to show where we are going as an Empire. John Perkin's "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" and Stephen Kinzer's "Overthrow" show a peak at to where we have been.
by
Jim Reinhart (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments)
on Monday, September 25, 2006 at 1:19:57 PM
but I believe the CIA more a tool of American business interests, ensuring that the sums invested in foreign nations is protected by a government installed by the CIA in order to do just that.
Torture is such an awful practice, heretofore the property of those we wished to overthrow, at least in part because they tortured their own. Now that we are engaged in the terrible practice on such a grand scale ( we have tortured before, you can bet on it!) we say that it isnt really torture, its just tough interrogation techniques or some other smarmy and stupid rephrasing of that practice.
Ultimately I believe that Bush orders it because he and his entire administration have painted themselves into a corner, have come to understand that they were wrong on a level so enormous as to leave no possibility of admission of such error. So they torture some poor wretches until they admit they are AlQaeda and thus justify the actions that history will condemn them for, and condemn them it shall.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Monday, September 25, 2006 at 7:39:02 PM
None of this discussion even registers with Bush...
Bush stated again that Iraq will be viewed as so insignificant among the accomplishments of his administration that it will only rate a "comma" in the history books. I suspect records to be rapidly disappearing under the Bush/Gonzales unoffical 'theory of the unitary presidency' and 'executive sovereignty.' Bush and his crew know they will not be prosecuted or held accountable for any of their crimes and sins against humanity no matter how injurious, expensive, or devastating they will ultimately be or how wide-spread the disaster.
by
Amanda Lang (23 articles, 13845 quicklinks, 431 diaries, 593 comments)
on Monday, September 25, 2006 at 9:35:47 PM
But I have hope that, given a rebirth of the Democratic Party, a series of investigations might just culminate in prosecution of several administration figures. I foresee Cheney convicted of treason,theft and malfeasance of office, sentences to 25 years in a Federal penitentiary, "dying of heart failure" and joining Ken Lay on that desert island..........
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at 8:42:55 PM
Hitler tortured because his dad tortured him. At the age of 13, he told himself that he would never cry again, after a beating. Torture begats torture. Momma Bush has said that GW wasn't the easiest child to raise. Spare the rod spoil the child. My own family believed in that as well. Solomon collected all those neat proverbs, but it didn't mean he used them. Check out how his kids ended up. Horrible. Look at how BuSHITica ended up. Horrible. He's a torturer and a whimp. So was Hitler.
by
Dale Hill (58 articles, 0 quicklinks, 102 diaries, 347 comments)
on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at 1:03:37 AM
I have been pondering myself why the Bush administration and GDubya were so hell-bent on maintaining the right to torture.
I addressed each of your points:
1) They don't give a rat's rump whether or not it "works".
2) The lust for power has something to it. When power is your god then most anything is OK if it furthers the need to express that power.
3) Bush and his people don't give a big rat's runp about protecting anyone or anything except themselves and their grip on power.
4) Bush and his people believe that he is the current emperor and they believe that his, and by proxy their, powers are absolute. So far they have been successful in doing whatever they pleased due to the Republican stranglehold on all three branches of the Federal government.
My belief is simple. George Bush is the dimwitted (with his room-temerature IQ) tool of the corporatists who actually call the shots in Washington DC.
His personal faith is laughable at best - if he ever read any of the Bible he has not a clue what any of it meant.
He really believes that he, by virtue of being President of the US, has unlimited power as the Chief executive officer of the government and Commander in Chief of the US armed forces. He is absolutely wrong in these beliefs. These unlimited powers are actually non-existent and are currently being wielded only because of the complete abdication of the responsibilities of the people of the US to shoulder their duties as citizens.
I have said this before and I say here again. George Bush is the most dangerous man that has ever sat in the Oval Office as the US president. He is quite willing to do whatever he deems necessary to remain in power. He will continue to do whatever he wants or is told to do by his masters in the corporate world. That most certainly includes torture.
Sincerely,
Michael Weaver-Robbins
by
Michael Weaver-Robbins (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 30 comments)
on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at 3:44:14 AM
Torture. It is a tired method of bending someone to the will of another. It is the only method available to bullies, since they lack the social grace or capacity for abstract thought and debate necessary to change anther's opinion by means of intelligent discourse. It does not extract useful information in any way, shape or form. It only works as a means of pain infliction, and in the case of the sexual deviant, erotic pleasure.
Now that I have stated that, let me answer your numbered points.
1) The fact that DUBYA and many of his ilk feel the "jury is still out on evolution" definitely supports this particular contention. If they are deluded enough to believe that mythology is science, they are deluded enough to think that torture is effective.
2) Sadistic jollies...yes, that sounds about right. I have often heard that the most sanctimonious among us are also the most deviant. All one has to do is look at the fact that Scary Jerry Falwell thinks Tinky Winky and SpongeBob Squarepants are gay to know he wants to be with a man so bad, he can taste it. Doesn't the number of dead from 9/11 to the Iraq war to Hurricane Katrina show DUBYA is into snuff? Many who are into sadistic snuff are also into torture.
3) DUBYA is definitely delusional enough to think we think he's a tough guy, a western sherrif, if you will. Wanting the freedom to torture does make him look tough in the eyes of some. However, I have never seen bullies as tough. I can only see them as terminally broken people. In the case of DUBYA, he's about as broken as Charlie Manson.
4) Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If DUBYA isn't the most corrupt politician in recent memory, I'll eat the memory chips out of this machine...it has almost 400 megs, that's a lot of chips!
One more thing, in response to the reply by innovator, I'd like to say with all the crimes that DUBYA has committed, both here in the US, and abroad, there will be no way he can escape prosecution. Once he is no longer in power, I get the feeling he will pay for his transgressions. If he doesn't pay by facing trial, he will pay on his last days, or upon his descent into the place where Satan reportedly does business.
Ronny Ray-Gun paid for ignoring the suffering of people with AIDS by dying a slow, wasting death mirroring the suffering of those whom he condemned to death by his inaction. Karma dictates that we all pay for our transgressions. With the amount of bad karma that DUBYA has wrought, there will be no escaping payback time!
Blessed be!
Pappy
by
Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 860 comments)
on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at 4:21:52 AM
9 comments
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