Children that are found to routinely torture animals have been shown to be so deeply disturbed that they often grow up to be the most brutal and detached of psychopathic serial killers. This sort of pathology is repugnant and shocking. This behavior is completely bereft of the basic values of human decency and morality.
During the war on Al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, the C.I.A. felt that by engaging in this sort of behavior with detainees, that it would be fine because it was being done for purely patriotic and honorable reasons. Leaders in the White House were just fine with it, and Congressional oversight, a laughable term if there ever was one, saw no problem either.
Well, the just released Senate report that describes in detail what actually was done by the C.I.A. in the name of the U.S.A. would not have been out of place in any P.O.W. camp of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or North Viet Nam.
We recoil at the brutal beheadings that I.S.I.S has video taped. We accuse our enemies of all manner of heinous and despicable tactics. But, even in our own backyards, American citizens are treated inhumanely, shot dead in their tracks by racist tinged law enforcement.
American society is very, very sick. It shows in how we justify the C.I.A. and their horrific tactics. It shows in how local police departments are rendered immune by protective prosecutors and cooperative grand juries. It shows in how the poor minorities are denied voting rights and economic equality. It shows in how, even now, a major political party is desperate to rescind health insurance for millions of Americans for purely political reasons.
The U.S.A. has lost it's claim to the moral high ground, as if it ever really had it. The notion of "American exceptionalism" is just another symptom of the raging narcissism that has gripped this country for decades.
The Senate report on torture, and the tortured defense of these tactics, gives us all a small peek into the truth of where we stand as a nation. Is it any wonder the we are reviled in the world as hypocrites and cretins?
During the war on Al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, the C.I.A. felt that by engaging in this sort of behavior with detainees, that it would be fine because it was being done for purely patriotic and honorable reasons. Leaders in the White House were just fine with it, and Congressional oversight, a laughable term if there ever was one, saw no problem either.
Well, the just released Senate report that describes in detail what actually was done by the C.I.A. in the name of the U.S.A. would not have been out of place in any P.O.W. camp of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or North Viet Nam.
We recoil at the brutal beheadings that I.S.I.S has video taped. We accuse our enemies of all manner of heinous and despicable tactics. But, even in our own backyards, American citizens are treated inhumanely, shot dead in their tracks by racist tinged law enforcement.
American society is very, very sick. It shows in how we justify the C.I.A. and their horrific tactics. It shows in how local police departments are rendered immune by protective prosecutors and cooperative grand juries. It shows in how the poor minorities are denied voting rights and economic equality. It shows in how, even now, a major political party is desperate to rescind health insurance for millions of Americans for purely political reasons.
The U.S.A. has lost it's claim to the moral high ground, as if it ever really had it. The notion of "American exceptionalism" is just another symptom of the raging narcissism that has gripped this country for decades.
The Senate report on torture, and the tortured defense of these tactics, gives us all a small peek into the truth of where we stand as a nation. Is it any wonder the we are reviled in the world as hypocrites and cretins?
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