The Torturers Among Us.

[reprehensor]

Carol Towarnicky: 'The torturers among us'

"Somebody tell me frankly, what times are these, what kind of world, what country?"

THESE words come from a poem about torture that Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman composed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

But they resonate through the seemingly daily revelations from government and military reports of the abuse of prisoners by Americans in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq. They fit all too well the testimony of those whom the CIA allegedly delivered to countries where they were tortured.

Yet, in response, a disturbing number of Americans just shrug - or even applaud.

What times are these? In the past, torture was inimical to the image of America. In the movies, it was the Japanese or the Nazis or the North Koreans who stooped so low, while Americans maintained their humanity. Yet this season, the "good guys" in the Counter Terrorism Unit on the TV series "24" have used methods approaching torture on at least three suspects so far. Even the show's main character, Jack Bauer, personally delivered electric shocks to a man's chest in a search for information.

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1. We have become

The monsters we once fought against. Why, you may ask, because of fear, fear imposed by the government, fear of the Communists, fear of the Hippie culture, fear of sexual freedom, fear, fear, fear.

And because of that fear, the government imposes on our freedoms.

And yet our national anthem ends with the words "...land of the free, and the home of the brave", what a crock!!!

The Justice Department is now headed by a man who believes that the President can over rule any law, that torture within certain guidelines is acceptable, and that the President can lock away any one just by placing the label "enemy combatant" on them, and deny them all Constitutional rights, and this includes American citizens as well.

The DoD, is filled with officers and civilians who have little or no loyalty to the US Constitution, or to the people of the United States. The Joint Chiefs is nothing more then the 21st Century equivilant to Hitler's Generals, they ask no questions, they tell Bush what he wants to hear, not what he needs to know, and everytime that they do they betray the men and women in uniform, and betray this country as well.

The US Congress is mostly made up of men and women who are only interested in getting re-elected, or like Holy Joe Enablerman, will
make a deal with Satan.

The MSM, is nothing more then Joseph Goebbels dream brought back to life. A propaganda arm for this administration and the GOP.

As for the American people, at least half buy into the hype being sold to them by the corporate media.

And now the rest of the world can see that the US military is nothing more then a paper tiger, unable to defeat an insurgency that is made up of Islamists and the former members of a fifth rate military. The Chinese know that the US will rattle its sabers, but will not come to the aid of Taiwan, everyone knows that the US military is stretched almost to the breaking point. Recruiting for the USMC was dwon for first two months of this year, something that hasn't happened in a decade. The Army isn't even close to half of what it's supposed to recruit for the fiscal year, and it only has until September 30th to recruit 64,000.

The National Guard and Reserves, will not meets it's requirements either. The only two services meeting their goals are the USAF and the USN, mainly because the members of these two services hardly ever get close to where the shooting is. But that may change as well.

Okay, I'm done now, thanks for letting me rant a little.