Bill Watt’s Blog

Yeah yeah… I know after 8 years we’re all getting bored of discussing all the crap going on with this administration but apathy is the enemy (ok, one of many enemies) that keeps us from being shocked into action. How does this stuff keep happening? Because we let it. This week marked the 5th anniversary of the “Mission Accomplished” debacle. At this point my assumption is that we’ll be learning of the ways that this administration considers itself above the law for years to come.

I think it all started when went into Iraq to punish Al Queda… the two weren’t linked but this is what the government used as the justification for the action they wanted to take. I’m just glad Bush doesn’t have a grudge against CA or I might be living in a post-Katrina style refugee camp.

Check out this post called, “Congratulations, America … Children are Being Tortured in Your Name” and then tell me what you think. Here is the text of the post:

Congratulations, America … Children are Being Tortured in Your Name

Over the last 24 hours, news about U.S. torture has been leaking out:

• A former prisoner testified to Congress that he was beaten, hung by his arms for five days, subjected to electrical shocks and, “They stuck my head into a bucket of water and punched me in the stomach,” he said. “I inhaled the water. … It was a strong punch.”

• The FBI was so disturbed at what they saw at Guantanamo that FBI staff created a “war crimes file” to document accusations against American military personnel at Guantanamo. For example, the head of the FBI’s national security law unit wrote in July 2003: “Beyond any doubt, what they are doing (and I don’t know the extent of it) would be unlawful were these enemy prisoners of war”

• The U.S. military not only tortured prisoners for themselves, but also did the “dirty work” of “softening up” prisoners for Chinese interrogators

The U.S. has also tortured prisoners to death in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

Not bad enough for you?

Well, the U.S. has imprisoned 2,500 children since 9/11 as “enemy combatants”, in violation of the Geneva Convention against classifying children as POWs.

Still not disgusted?

Okay . . . Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh says that the U.S. Government has videotapes of boys being raped at Abu Ghraib prison (see also this and this).

This doesn’t come as a complete surprise, given that assistant deputy Attorney General John Yoo has publicly argued that the president can order the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.

Congratulations, America. This is being done in your name.

If you’re not sick to your stomach by learning that your government has been killing and torturing people - including children - then you are a psychopath or a pervert.

Don’t try to tell me that torture is a necessary evil. It is well-known by professional interrogators that torture doesn’t work. Experts on interrogation say that torture actually interferes with the ability to gather useful information.

Side note- I still don’t understand how Guantanamo Bay still exists in the current form.  How are we, the leader of the free world, allowing American run prisons to exist on foreign soil specifically to prevent the rule of American law? It makes it hard for me to criticize China, Egypt and others when our country claims to be the standard bearer and then does the exact same thing. That kind of hypocrisy has to make it worse.

Also- please don’t miss out on the irony of the recent senate hearings where American companies that respect foreign law in the countries they do business are coming under fire. Cisco, Yahoo, Google and others are being grilled for turning over documents to the Chinese govt in accordance with the local law. It is a complex issue but where is the protection for Americans in America when the Bush administration asks phone companies for records and recordings of our calls?

Ugh… I just get so crazed when I think about this crap.