Torture? No big deal. They deserved it.

So why do the Republicans profane the memory of our
dead with their love of brutality and torture?

The growing amorality of the Republican Party, their utter soullessness, has become a danger to this Republic. Not in the sense of the brownshirts marching down the Mall, but of something deeper. As religion becomes more of a political tool, it's lessons are forgotten and the soul of this country becomes rotten. Since they have no stake in the war or the courage to fight it, they embrace the morality of the Gestapo and the Allegemine SS, shooting deserters who had grown sick of war while they sat in offices and tortured the unarmed and innocent before shiping them to a death camp. When finally faced with combat, they ran just like the men they condemend to death.

Americans have never been as morally clean as we pretend, our history lionizes criminals and murderers. But Gitmo is wrong. We know it is wrong, our enemies hope we continue it as it is the biggest thing they have to recruit others. When we release people from there, their stories serve as an excellent reason to fight the US.

And now, these cowards who hide behind keyboards, who have every fucking excuse on earth to not go to Iraq, have the nerve to say something? The only thing they should say is what MOS they want to train for at the recruiters. This nonsense comes from Redstate.Org

Worse Torture: Christina Aguilera or Dick Durbin? By: Leon H � Section: Diaries
The gents at The American Thinker have found Dick Durbin confusing our soldiers with... wait for it... Nazis! Not only Nazis, but Soviet gulag operators! Not only Soviet gulag operators, but also Pol Pot henchmen! The evidence of Senator Durbin's divorcement from both sanity and historical perspective continues below the fold:
Jun 15th, 2005: 17:32:06, Not Rated

On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ..... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Let me get this straight. Durbin digs up two instances of people being subjected to uncomfortable temperature extremes, some rap music, and suddenly we're the Khmer Rouge?

Allow me to brief Senator Durbin on the fact that there are quite a few people in this country who regularly endure spells of cold that no air-conditioner could hope to recreate. They're called "Alaskans", or sometimes just "Northerners." There are also quite a few of us who regularly have to endure long periods of 100 degree-plus temperatures. They're called "Texans".

The rap music thing, though, that's just uncalled for.

As someone who's lived significant amounts of time in both Alaska and Texas (voluntarily!) I can tell you that I never seriously wondered whether I had it worse than the Jews in the holocaust. Perhaps I lack the sensitivity of Senator Durbin.

One thing I don't lack is the skills necessary to - you know - read a book every now and then, and most of the books that I've read seem to indicate that during the holocaust, people were starved/gassed/burned to death, that those interned in the gulags were often interned in Siberia, where Air Conditioning would have been a relative blast of warm air, and Pol Pot murdered about 2 million of his own citizens.

So I guess, in Dick Durbin's mind, forcing someone to listen to rap music for 18 hours is roughly equivalent to all of that. Who says the Democratic party is losing touch with African Americans?

What I would like to know is, at what point can I claim torture for being forced to listen to Dick Durbin?

And let me inform the asshole who wrote this that temeperature control was the Luftwaffe's favored interrogation technique of Western air crews. You try being in a room which is 100 degrees one hour and 50 the next. A few hours of that, and you'll be out of your mind. Toss in loud, foriegn music and the uncertainty of your fate, and it's an insanely stressful situation

What I love about these cowards on the right is their utter lack of compassion combined with whining. No, Texans don't endure 100 degree heat indoors, because they have air conditioning,. Where in the South is AC not used? Where in Alaska is heat not used. It isn't, because people would die.

So why did they miss the point of the prisoner being chained to the floor. Hey, it was a terrorist, it didn't matter.

I am tired of the phony bravery of these people, their cowardice shines through like a beacon. They condone abusing those in our custody but refuse to serve this country in combat, as they wish others would do.

But the larger point is this: America is supposed to have higher standards than the Nazis or Stalin, not embrace them or use them as a defense. There is no reason that we should have a gulag in the sun or be accused of torture. We should have jailed and tried these people legally. Not acted like the people we're supposed to be fighting.

One day, Americans will be subjected to this and then what will these people say "it's unfair"? Well, we tossed away our conscience and morals to achieve this end, and the result will be grim. But they won't be the ones paying it. They will be hiding behind their keyboards like the cowards they are, whining, lying and rejoicing in the suffering of others and wishing to see evem more brutality, but only from a safe distance.

posted by Steve @ 12:47:00 AM