Tag: torture

Current Affairs Music

More on our #torture policies

islamoyankee

If you haven’t already seen it, read this article in Harper’s entitled “We Still Torture.” Then go listen to “Blackout Beach” by the Kominas. Now we have entered what we may wish to call the post-torture era, except that it is not. Indeed, we cannot even revert to the easy hypocrisy of the Cold War. We have returned to our traditional practice of torturing and pretending not to, but the old routine is no longer convincing. We know too much. We know that we are still imprisoning men who very likely are completely innocent. We know that we still beat…

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Current Affairs

Would you like a cup of urine with your anal rape? #torture

islamoyankee

The hits just keep coming. h/t noufel The next time I hear some idiot refer to Jack Bauer in defense of torture, I want to ask him what he thinks of Jack Bauer rogering terrorists with a broomstick. You’ve never seen that in the hours of not-so-subtle pro-torture TV drama we’ve seen since 2001, have you? Never saw Andy Sipowicz cornhole a skell on NYPD blue? Or Michael Chiklis on The Shield making a suspect drink his pee? Me neither. Something tells me that might have hurt their ratings.

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Politics

Missing the Point

islamoyankee

Indeed. I don’t know anyone who wanted to close the detention facility at Gitmo because of where it was — but rather because of what it was. It’s not merely a symbol, but is the embodiment of the implementation of a bad policy. If you close Gitmo but carry on the same bad policy elsewhere, you’re playing a shell game, Mr. President. [From Missing the Point]

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Current Affairs

Even the Dutch Talking Smack Now

islamoyankee

So let’s see, we have the guts to torture these people, shown them our power and how “strong” we are, but we are too weak to have them in our country. TPM Reader BB, a “proud citizen of the Netherlands,” says it’s time the U.S. man up and stop NIMBYing the Gitmo detainees: … Let’s take those war criminals (of which dozens have been tried and sentenced) from the Balkan conflict as an example. Here is a group that still has lots of support (Serbs primarily) all across Europe. They are in cells in the Hague which is driving distance…

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Politics

Jesse Ventura on Torture

islamoyankee

I’m liking Jesse Ventura more and more. Last week: give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders This week: “If waterboarding is OK, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects so they can learn what they know?” he asked. “If waterboarding is OK, why didn’t we waterboard [Timothy] McVeigh and Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers, to find out if there were more people involved? … We only seem to waterboard Muslims… Have we waterboarded anyone else? Name me someone else who has been waterboarded.”

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