Torture

"The Army interrogator, Lewis Welshofer Jr., who stuffed an Iraqi general into a sleeping bag and sat on it until he suffocated to death has been convicted of dereliction of duty and “negligent homicide,” which must be a definition of the word negligent with which I am not familiar, and acquitted of murder. The highest sentence he can now get is 3 years. Welshofer claimed to be following a directive from the US commander in Iraq: “The gloves are coming off, gentlemen… We want these individuals broken.” Welshofer responded that the military needed to loosen its interrogation standards, now that it’s no longer facing such pansies as, um, the Nazis: “Today’s enemies, especially in southwest Asia, understand force, not … mind games.” Evidently his superior didn’t recognize that that meant he planned to use, well, force. The name of Welshofer’s lawyer, by the way: Spinner, Frank Spinner."

I have had an on again off again conversation about torture and the US Government for a couple of years. Mostly lately it's been off again because I tend to lose my cool, and my ticker taps out an unusual beat. It's something that is so obviously evil -toture, that is, not my heart- that it has become for me symbolic of the evolution of humanity away from positive karmic impulses. This issue is like the poster child for the failure of free choice. What can one say to those with no profound appreciation for what it is that has been lost?

a sick twisted salute to the website i most look forward to reading each day.