seven things i hate about you...

#7- torture? I barely know her…

I really can’t believe that I’m writing this blurb now.  The reason I can’t believe it is because I was raised (in a 2^nd generation military household, fyi) with the idea that torture and the fact that we didn't do it was something that separated us from our enemies.  The Nazi’s gassed people and worse while we died to liberate them.  The NVA performed medical experiments on POW’s and left them to die slow deaths- we treated our POW’s with restraint and humanity. The KGB pulled people’s fingernails out, we sent Billy Joel on a Soviet concert tour.   That is the world I grew up in.  While it’s clear that my beliefs as a child were simplistic, the fundamental truth stood firm- America did NOT torture.  When old people say things like “America’s going down the tubes” or “things aren’t like they used to be” they’re usually referring to the rise of rap, baggy pants and the third season of Flavor of Love.  The truth is much worse and far more dangerous than a former rapper with 3 teeth and 4 STD’s.  When our leaders support torture- not only covertly but OPENLY for chrissakes- we have reached a point from which there may be no return in terms of our international image.

The argument is presented as complex but it is painfully (pardon the pun, gitmo) simple.  Torture is a war crime.  If we want to commit war crimes to defeat terrorists who don’t play by the rules, then we’ve clearly already lost.  Any government who commits torture in my name deserves to be overthrown and any American who supports torture or abstains from the debate over it loses the right to be appalled or disgusted by what terrorists do.