comment on The Torture Time Bomb Sun, 10/19/2008
I watched this graphic documentary--"Torturing Democracy" tonight on PBS. At first it made me angry. Very angry. Then as the documentary continued it set in that this is very real. That what is going on in gitmo, and in Iraq, and in hundreds of CIA black facilities around the world is very, very real. That America and many Americans have accepted "torture" as a needed technique. That this administration and this president has sunk to such un-American ideals and practices, have circumvented international laws and Geneva conventions, simply by relabeling practices, peoples and techniques is so surreal I wept. A precedence has been laid--and accepted. A new low has been assimilated into the fabric of this nation, an assimilation that has sent a signal to the world for acceptance. An acceptance that WILL at some point come back to strike American POWs and "enemy combatants" in the same way.And what righteous indignation will we be able to stand upon? Now, it does not take a law professor to figure that this acceptance, an acceptance by the highest leadership in this country--Executive, Legislative and Judicial, by citizens aware and citizens with heads in the sand--combined with other chisels of democracy--the [patriot] Act, HR 1955 and countless Executive Orders--that this same practice--rendition, imprisonment without charge, "interrogation" without charge, detainment without end, torture short of injury to organ or death--may very well encroach upon each and any US citizen for... The one bright side to this documentary is that there are yet some people high in government with moral integrity who have spoken out against this and have testified (at least on this documentary) to what they have seen firsthand, what has been presented to them, what has been commanded of them. Keep in mind no matter what, as Martin Luther King Jr said, "Darkness can not drive out darkness, only light can. Hate can not drive out hate, only love can." - Ralph Ing (not verified)
