Working the Dark Side
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/05/01-1
snip:
No one talks about “the Auschwitz scandal.” The depth of our moral wrong has yet to be plumbed.
snip:
In other words, the pain and degradation we inflicted on detainees — including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, extreme stress positions, wall-slamming and so much more (“working the dark side,” as Dick Cheney infamously put it) — yielded little or no information we were actually able to use. We tortured, we strip-mined, these men and women for nothing.
snip:
“Some believe that those who torture do so simply to extract information from the captured enemy,” Power wrote. “This is not entirely true, as the examples of Abu Ghraib, the tiger cages in Vietnam, and the treatment of slaves and prisoners in this country show so clearly. Torture is used to degrade, humiliate, and destroy both the individual who is being abused and members of his or her community who care about and feel connected to the victim of torture. It is a weapon used by those in power to maintain themselves in power.”
