Arpig
Posts: 9930
Joined: 1/3/2006 From: Increasingly further from reality Status: offline
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Perhaps, downkitty, the difference is one of degree. Those who went before did their torturing (if, in fact they did so, which we have only your word for at the moment) quietly in the shadows and this guy did it out in the open. I will not dispute that torture has been applied by American soldiers and CIA operatives in the past, however I do dispute that it was done so systematically as a matter of policy. Bush/Cheney made it US policy to torture people held under the slimest of rationales, and used the information extracted under torture to justify continuing to hold them. The present administration is using that same information (obtained by torture) to justify holding these people indefinately. The difference is that the torture was ordered by the President, not some guy in the field way down the chain of command. The President ordered it, the President is accountable, moreso than the underlings who when they questioned the order were assured by the highest officers of the land (including the Justice Department) that the methods employed were legal. (I hasten to add, before anybody thinks I am absolving the actual torturers themselves, that the guards at Auschwitz were also assured that their actions were legal by the highest authorities in the land, and that was not accepted as a defence then nor should it be now). The President and pretty much his entire administration participated in ordering the torture, and thus should all be held accountable. I know I am something of a hardass on government figures, but they must be held accountable for what they do.
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Big man! Pig Man! Ha Ha...Charade you are! Why do they leave out the letter b on "Garage Sale" signs? CM's #1 All-Time Also-Ran
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