Is it torture? If you have to ask, the answer is "yes".

[endarkenment]

Debates over the precise quality and quantity of pain inflicted by a specific interrogation 'technique' are evidence of the cesspool of moral depravity into which we have sunk. It is against international law, and a violation of our constitutional rights, to inflict pain on a person held by the state for questioning. It is a violation, one of the most basic violations, of fundamental human rights.

The corrupt rulers of our republic, as part of the fascist shift so well documented and described in Naomi Wolf's essay "The End of America", have normalized the routine torture of persons held by the state. Through their Bullshit Media System they have systematically trivialized the abhorrent. Their apologists and enablers have provided them the legal and intellectual framework to justify an abomination.

To those of you who continue to say 'it can't happen here', I say 'it already has'. Wake up.

[baseballhead]

1. It is really scary...

What will we tolerate next? Public hangings, again?

[stirlingsliver]

2. We're Next

If the US Government is willing (and eager) to use torture on people overseas, and if our elected officials fail to say a resounding "NO!" to anyone who equivocates on torture, then we need to be very, very frightened.

Because our own government will use those same torture techniques on us -- next.

And who wiil be able to say "NO!" then??

[endarkenment]

3. Watch closely their efforts to move gitmo onshore.

I've been puzzling over this move and I think I now understand what they are up to. Gitmo served its purpose prior to the military commissions act by being outside the jurisdiction of any federal judge, thus making it very difficult to successfully launch a challenge to the crimes being commmitted there. With the MCA shield the regime now intends to move their detention and interrogation centers inside the US and 'normalize' their status as outside of the standard judicial process. This will establish a separate special courts system, much like all of the other dreary fascist systems, where the rules will be quite different. It is a very small step from applying the courts to foreign nationals to applying these same courts to you and me. See Jose Padilla.