A Pretty Pretty Princess Picture Of The Secretary Of State, Torture-Bitch Of The Universe

Thank you, Jesus’ General.

Jesus’ General goes on to cite this article from The Guardian, which begins thus:

On Tuesday, December 2 2002, Donald Rumsfeld signed a piece of paper that changed the course of history. That same day, President Bush signed a bill to put the Pentagon in funds for the next year. The US faced unprecedented challenges, Bush told a large and enthusiastic audience, and terror was one of them. The US would respond to these challenges, and it would do so in the “finest traditions of valour”. And then he signed a large increase in the defence budget.

Elsewhere in the Pentagon, an event took place for which there was no comment, no fanfare. With a signature and a few scrawled words, Rumsfeld reneged on the tradition of valour to which Bush had referred. Principles for the conduct of interrogation, dating back more than a century to President Lincoln’s famous instruction of 1863 that “military necessity does not admit of cruelty”, were discarded. He approved new and aggressive interrogation techniques that would produce devastating consequences.

The article goes on to describe the ways the Bush administration went on to subvert international law in order to use torture (and thus lower our moral standing in the world even more), and worse, just exactly how nonchalant they were about implementing these illegal methods. Later on, the article states that the television show 24 actually had an influence on the crafting of torture policies at Guantanamo. No, really. Seriously. Next up, The Supreme Court brushes up by watching Judge Judy:

It was only when I got home that I realised she was referring to the main character in Fox’s hugely popular TV series, 24. Bauer is a fictitious member of the Counter Terrorism Unit in LA who helped to prevent many terror attacks on the US; for him, torture and even killing are justifiable means to achieve the desired result. Just about every episode had a torture scene in which aggressive techniques of interrogations were used to obtain information.

Jack Bauer had many friends at Guantánamo Bay, Beaver said, “he gave people lots of ideas.” She believed the series contributed to an environment in which those at Guantánamo were encouraged to see themselves as being on the frontline – and to go further than they otherwise might.

Under Beaver’s guidance, a list of ideas slowly emerged. Potential techniques included taking the detainees out of their usual environment, so they didn’t know where they were or where they were going; the use of hoods and goggles; the use of sexual tension, which was “culturally taboo, disrespectful, humiliating and potentially unexpected”; creating psychological drama. Beaver recalled that smothering was thought to be particularly effective, and that Dunlavey, who’d been in Vietnam, was in favour because he knew it worked.

The younger men would get particularly agitated, excited even: “You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas.” A wan smile crossed Beaver’s face. “And I said to myself, you know what, I don’t have a dick to get hard. I can stay detached.”

Seriously. (Seriously?)

Seriously.

The worst part is that torture actually doesn’t tend to produce reliable intel. It just doesn’t. Intelligence experts from all over the world confirm that, this article confirms that, the story of London terror suspect Mouloud Sihali confirms that (the link is a summary of a Vanity Fair piece by William Langewiesche that I’m reading that, sadly, doesn’t seem to be online), and on and on.

Condi chaired the meetings where the top dogs discussed the authorization of torture, that’s why she MUST resign, and every single one of these assholes should be carted off to The Hague to be tried for war crimes.

These are the things going on in the world that you’re likely to miss if you’re not paying close attention.

Apparently Barack Obama being neighbors with “some guy” is more important in our retarded culture.