TORTURERS

[NanceGreggs]

They are men of small stature. Not meaning short in height, nor slight in frame – just small, diminutive, easily lost in the shadows – easily overlooked.

They are men of little virtue. They espouse good Christian values when it is socially expected, or politically expedient. But in the night, they slink and slither, and blend into the dankness of decay – easily invisible.

They are men of legalities. They hold themselves out as ethical followers of the letters of the law. But they search for the loophole, the technicality that will exonerate them, the route by which they can circumvent true justice – easily immune.

They are men of insignificance. That is why they must wield the power of pain – always someone else’s, never theirs. They enjoy the suffering, because they are cowards, because they are impotent and flaccid – easily dismissed.

They are men of incompetence. Their only talent is getting the job done, the “job” invariably being something so totally abhorrent, men of ambition and a sense of their dollar worth wash their hands of it, Pilate-like, early in the game – easily blameless.

They are all the same. They are torturers.

They are high and low, they are politicians and pencil-pushers, they are surveyors and purveyors, they are fast-talking ad men and smooth-talking madmen, they are professional excuse-makers and amateur finger-pointers, and all-around, get ‘em while they’re hot, totally fucked-up, disgrace-to-the-human-race, barbarians.

They are all the same. They are torturers.

To all of you torturers out there who this may reach, be of good cheer. You may yet escape the rightful punishment that you so richly deserve. But if you have one scintilla of humanity left within you, the guilt, the shame, the moral emptiness you live with every day is a far worse punishment than we, your fellow citizens, could ever mete out.

Here’s the deal. If you can’t/won’t confess your actions publicly as a crime against everything we, the American People, stand for and aspire to, confess to your own family. Explain, in vivid detail, what you did, ordered, approved, signed-off on, did the paperwork for and/or turned a blind eye to to your idealistic teen-aged son, or your sweet-and-innocent grand-daughter.

Look in their eyes as you make you excuses, as you describe the torment you helped inflict on someone’s child, someone’s parent, someone’s neighbor, someone’s best friend.

Watch them closely – they will judge you, and you will be devastated by their verdict. And their disgust is, for you, a life sentence.

Hope your participation seems worthwhile now.

Torturer.

[lame54]

1. It's Obama's move now...

Let's HOPE he does the right thing

[HopeOverFear]

7. Wrong it's Holder and congress's move

Obama already did the right thing

[cliffordu]

13. I wish everyone here understood what you just said.

[HopeOverFear]

16. Me too. I'm getting sick and tired of saying it.

[katandmoon]

34. And I'm getting sick and tired of reading smug issuances like this

[skepticscott]

25. What exactly did Obama do

other than say, if not explicitly, by clear implication, that he would never seek to have any representative of the United States held responsible for torture, since that would be "spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."?

[TankLV]

26. sorry - obama did the WRONG thing by refusing to persue this...

and EXCUSING the "just following orders" crew...

[cali]

2. i disagree, Nance. This is not what either history or science teaches us.

Torturers are us. We'd all like to believe that we wouldn't torture. Milgram showed us that most people, under the "right" circumstances, will torture.

It's important that we recognize our own dark sides, and not deny them.

And they aren't all the same. They may share certain characteristics, but they aren't all the same. Pretending that torturers are some sort of other is running away from self-knowledge as well as knowledge of the human condition.

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. Wrong, Cali. It is not a matter of the technical potential of any individual for evil,

but of his or her assent or rejection of it. You make a fundamental error in stating that we are all powerless to resist the psychopathic side of our nature. Bear in mind, we're not even talking about the people who are being tortured, but the torturers themselves.

In fact, we make moral choices, however seemingly slight in significance, virtually every moment of the day, and it's in our own interest to make as many of them the right ones as we can, to get into the habit of doing so, because if we do the opposite and our conscience becomes inured to more serious sin/evil, eventually we go to a place beyond recall. We become mere cyphers of evil forces, like the torturers. Solzhenitzin comments on this "tipping point" in his book, Gulag Archipelago.

[Lionel Mandrake]

29. Milgram showed us that most people ... will torture.

He did exactly that. It was quite a shock (sorry, couldn't resist).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram_shock_expe...

[katandmoon]

33. So is that supposed to make it OK that Obama is giving government torturers a pass?

[PeaceNikki]

35. Obama didn't give them a "pass", the DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE DID.

Jesus Christ. The DoJ cannot tell you one day that something is legal and then prosecute you the next for doing it. That's entrapment.

[tomreedtoon]

41. Yes. We are all bastards down inside.

And just as men are only as loyal to a marriage as their opportunities, people are only as moral as their opportunities. Given the right circumstances, and no oversight, anyone will become a torturer.

It is always the person who claims to be pure, or who claims to know a pure path, or claims that it is possible to know a pure path, that ends up running Abu Gareb or Buchenwald or The Glenn Beck Show.

[saltpoint]

42. I believe the OP has it right, cali. The argument made in some

studies generates the truth ( ) that within each self lies the seed of its opposite characteristics.

But that addage does not excuse law-breaking. And there is also a vast different between We are all jay-walkers and We are all torturers.

Social philosophy may not use the range of human flaws against itself to advance a false claim. What laws we have, themselves imperfect, are the frailest stay against grievous transgression. When We the People, inadvertently through elected ( ) officials initiate, implement, lie about, and then condone torture, the claims the OP registers against that transgression are entirely legitimate.

[JohnnyLib2]

3. Recommended as an appeal to conscience.

I also agree with Cali.

The OP could be aimed at, among others, fraternity hazers, many sports staffs, some elements working in nursing homes, hospitals, penal institutions.......... and some families. "Our own dark sides" are never far away.

[madamesilverspurs]

4. Pilate.

That particular reference, for some reason, conjured immediately the image of Dick Cheney. The dismissiveness of our concerns ("So?"), effectively 'washing his hands' of any relevant activity. Cheney would never confess nor admit, that would imply wrongdoing. Instead he prefers bombast and boasting about what "we've" done, the inherent irony firmly rooted in his energetic avoidance of military service during the Vietnam years. The "we" to which he refers are those on the other ends of the strings he pulls from a very safe and often undisclosed distance. That which makes him proud makes US gag. Dick Cheney, director of torturers, is the ultimate coward.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. But they are to be set free

to coach Little Leauge in your town! God is in the Mix! One man, one woman! Free the torturers, oppress the gays! God is in the Mix!
Why is his God not 'in the mix' when people are beaten sensless? The President's god is cool with torture, even to the point of rewarding them with pensions and benefits and annointing them with the oil of innocence.
St Paul held the coats of those who stoned Stephen. Never thew a stone. He was just a holder.

[cali]

6. what nonsense.

what Candide style naive nonsense. And no this has nothing to do with right wing fundamentalism. This is not, my friend, the best of all possible worlds. Justice is rarely served anywhere. There's something so American about your post. And no, I'm not saying they shouldn't be prosecuted.

[bvar22]

19. Now, if the people who are crying out for JUSTICE....

...would just STFU, we could all just walk away and not be bothered by their hopeless whining.

You may be right about "Justice is rarely served anywhere", but that is no reason to insult those who cry out for it.

I thank god for them.
I also STAND with them.
THEY are our humanity.

[saltpoint]

9. For reasons I'm unprepared to explain, when I read your sentence about

God being in the mix, my first thought was of puppy chow.

Theologically, it is a rickety bridge indeed between the presence of a Creator Entity and a hungry pooch, but it's Saturday morning, and that's what came to mind. You accuse me of being tangential, surely, but I am nothing if not tangential.

[Wednesdays]

10. God is in the Puppy Chow

[mkultra]

18. doG is in the MIX

[saltpoint]

8. The argument is with the author. Who among the people you

describe and implicate would be willing or able to stand up to a scathing evaluation like this?

Alberto Gonzales could not even handle a Senate Committee, let alone Nance Greggs. I single out former Attorney General Gonzales because he seems to me to be the most high-profile transgressor. He seems to be a likely name on the list of addressees.

- - -
"Look in their eyes as you make you excuses, as you describe the torment you helped inflict on someone’s child, someone’s parent, someone’s neighbor, someone’s best friend."
- - -

The Right does not have the integrity or the talent to present this argument as urgently, or as well, as it is presented here.

As good as it gets, Ms. Greggs. Thank you.

[mmonk]

11. Great rant on the abhorrent underbelly of inhumanity.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. I weep for their, and our, lost humanity, Nance...

Well said, as usual.

K&R

[saltpoint]

14. This doesn't need kicking but I'm kicking it anyway. So there.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

15. The despicable acts

are no less despicable than the enablers that allow torture to take place.




I'm not just talking about certain members of congress who were briefed either.

[scentopine]

17. Those demanding justice are just torturing themselves

Its a well established fact that an individual under the stress of torture, will say anything to end the procedures. So there is a disturbing irony at work and at the end of it all. The torturers expend tremendous and valuable resources chasing down false or misleading leads, and the alleged "bad guy" is allowed the opportunity to fight and win against his enemy on multitude of fronts; moral, strategic, public opinion, etc.

From a broader vantage point:

We are running two land wars in Asia. But, when it comes to Wall Street and torture, the United States of America is impotent.

The Obama administration is not aggressively seeking justice for us in two enterprises where criminal and/or immoral behavior have run rampant. These enterprises, torture and investment banking, have caused irreparable harm to our nation. So far, its been nothing but faint apologies.

It isn't about not "looking ahead", its about investigating crimes and punishing perpetrators. This is called justice. Obama isn't demanding justice. The media isn't investigating the crimes. Because of this fact, he is sending a very clear message that for the gilded class of Washington and Wall Street power mongers, the laws and values of our society do not apply. Period. The effect is the accelerating disenfranchisement of both Democrats and Republicans and fueling extremism. Obama is just shoring up the ramparts defending the powerful from common justice.

[stillcool]

20. Whatever happened to the legislative branch?

Isn't the ball in their court regarding these torture memos?

[The Wizard]

22. Somewhere in Dante's Ninth Circle

will be the eternity these swine face. The screams of their victims will echo in their unconscious forever.
"The evil that men do lives after them"
(Julius Caesar Act III, sc. ii)
All part of the Bush legacy.

[rasputin1952]

23. Lower than humanity...

Those that would torture, those that find "joy" in the pain of others...may there really be a hell.

[saltpoint]

24. We have no personal quarrel, do we, with the men, women, and children

of the nations George Bush bombed and tore asunder and callously ignored.

I do not believe the word 'torture' needs much more discussion than the definition it is given in any dictionary, and I believe the OP is correct to lay the blame for its application to innocent people at the foot of those who proposed and planned it.

[scentopine]

27. torture, murder, fraud ...yawn?

Obama can appoint a special prosecutor. He has the infamous executive signing powers at his disposal. He sets the priorities for his administration. He can seek legal review. In fact, there are dozens of intermediary devices Obama can deploy to make sure justice is served. We now have two administrations whose passive aggressive behavior has condoned torture and NSA/CIA/FBI/AT&T spying on Americans. And Wall Street is raping the treasury, about 3 trillion so far without a single f'ing word about truth and justice. Just the "we are looking forward" bullshit.

This isn't idle whining, this is real dissent and opposition to our eroding freedoms and pillaging of our taxes, bank accounts and retirement funds. The value of American citizenship continues to erode each day that Obama and our Government turns their backs on justice. If these nefarious affairs don't qualify for legitimate outrage and investigation, how about the next escalation in this progression? Maybe death camps? Is that what it takes to get extreme center outraged? Don't count on it. I can almost hear it, "Fiddle-dee-dee. torture, torture, torture; this torture talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring."

[NanceGreggs]

28. Nice try ...

... no cigar.

But thanks for playin' ...

[skepticscott]

30. That's your answer?

Why are you so reluctant to answer substantive points that are in conflict with your OP's? In this case, why are you unwilling to address the fact that Obama has basically given totally amnesty to any representative of the United States who ever has, or ever will, engage in torture, to all of the people that you so roundly condemn?

A casual, content-free dismissal like this may fly with your disciples, but it cuts no ice with anyone thinking critically.

[scentopine]

32. There is a new puppy in the White House

And he has lots of adoring fans. Oh look he pooped on the carpet... that is so cute! No it isn't cute. It is sht on the carpet. And he stepped in it and he can try to rub it off, but he just spreads it around.

I worked as a delegate for Obama that doesn't mean I won't point out areas where he is letting politics trump government for the people. This is one of those times. This isn't a game. We are all losers here.

[scentopine]

38. I should have added that I am equally at fault

The title of my reply was sort of stupid, "torture, murder - yawn". It was meant to capture the apathy around this issue. I actually agree with the general catharsis of the OP and think it was good to read. However, I don't agree resolution of this issue can rely on the speculative assertion that the torturers families or their own ego will hold them in low esteem nor that this is the worst form of punishment. That won't happen. For example, should "Jeffery Dahmer" have been left alone to let his own conscious administer justice? In fact, history will eventually honor these individuals with a weird form of celebrity status with or without application of legal justice. I can see John Yoo's memos on Christie's auction block one day.

We have a process for pursuing justice in the civil and criminal court system. Unfortunately few individuals have the cash required to follow through with this process. And they will be fighting against teams with unlimited money. The Government on the other hand, does have resources and should apply them here. This isn't a time to "chill out" and sweep it under the rug. We are faced with the most severe moral and ethical dilemma of a generation.

We have amnesty for wiretapping, amnesty for torture, amnesty for wall street, but god help you if you are an illegal immigrant working hard and being a great member of community like so many here in Austin, Texas. Or god help you if you get caught smoking a joint - in some jurisdictions you'll do more hard time than any of the many criminals at the center of these scandals.

From the lies leading up to the Iraq war, to torture and wall street, things are completely out of control. While American conduct as never been ideal, there is near *zero* accountability for Government misdeeds. Each escapade has been worst than the preceding as powerful people who are immune from justice continues to test the limits of our apathy.

[BlooInBloo]

31. Keep in mind that those being tortured aren't people, to those doing the planning.

[katandmoon]

36. I get what you're really trying to say here. That it's OK that Obama isn't holding CIA torturers

responsible for their actions, because no legal punishment could possibly equal the self-punishment that torturers must live with.

Bullcrap.

[NanceGreggs]

39. I am saying no such thing ... n/t

[Divine Discontent]

37. and it'd be an absolute shame for this Dem. Admin. to let the torturers walk amongst the free

These butchers must face their crimes if our govt is to have any relevance in the world. I was sickened to hear the president say what he said about them last week. I do believe they who are false, especially those of which call themselves "Christian" and do these horrible things to people, will face an eternal damnation from God, but I believe God has given civilized society the wherewithal to justly punish with life sentences, the wicked who hurt or kill others.

Thanks for the rant, Nance. You speak our rage on this subject.

[saltpoint]

40. Re your first paragraph, Nance:

"I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why..."

(from Jackson Browne's "Lives in the Balance."

The post "TORTURERS" deserves the consideration of still more people, with a hope that they will email the link to others coast to coast.

A kick for a more just world.