You Can't Handle The Truth!

Three Cheers for Anonymous Liberal for this evolutionary history of our torture debate.

"This entire debate has progressed in an almost surreal way. For a long time, the Bush administration and its right wing apologists were in pure denial mode, claiming that the U.S. did not torture and conceding that torture was a bad thing ("what's a Code Red?"). After Abu Ghraib, the official line was that torture is against the law and these acts were the work of a few bad apples disobeying clear orders from above ("the men were specifically told that Private Santiago was not to be touched"). Eventually as the extent of the torture began to be reported, the Administration's apologists began to defend the concept of torturing terrorists in the abstract, while still not admitting to any specific conduct ("Private Santiago is dead and that is a tragedy, but he is dead because he had no code. He is dead because he had no honor, and God was watching.") With the release of the torture memos, however, we've now reached a whole new stage. Dick Cheney and his defenders are now in full on Jack Nicholson meltdown mode ("You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. . . .you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall!"). I just hope we eventually get to the frog march stage ("You fuckin' people, you have no idea how to defend a nation. All you did was weaken a country today.")"

Out - blinking - standing!

Joe H.