by MICHAEL SNYDER | THE AMERICAN DREAM |
Good guys do not sadistically torture people. Good guys do not threaten to sexually abuse the family members of their prisoners, and they certainly do not forcibly ram things up the rear ends of those in their custody. One of the greatest dangers that our country is facing is the fact that we are not passing on what it means to be “American” to future generations. Once upon a time, Americans were the good guys. But now, instead of fighting the Nazis we are behaving just like them. The details of the Senate torture report that was just released are almost too horrifying to talk about. We must talk about them though, because we are losing our soul as a nation. So please be warned – this article is going to be quite graphic. The reason for this is so that we can all take a long, hard, honest look at what we have become. After everything that has happened, top politicians from both political parties are still standing up and defending those that conducted and authorized this torture. The rest of the world is watching this, and the number of people that are absolutely convinced that America is pure evil is growing by the day. By not loudly condemning this torture and bringing the perpetrators to justice, we add fuel to the fire of those that hate this country, and we make it more likely that Americans will be targets of violence all over the planet.
There are very few people that are more outspoken about the evil of Islamic terrorism than I am. But there is no way that we will ever defeat Islamic terrorists by becoming just like them.
When I was growing up, I was taught that Americans never torture their prisoners. That was something that the Russians, the Nazis, the Chinese and the North Koreans did. We were the “good guys”, and so I was taught that we always treated our prisoners humanely.
Oh how things have changed.
The following is a summary of some of the details from the Senate torture report that just came out. As a nation, we should be deeply, deeply ashamed of what our government has been doing…
-We kept prisoners awake in “stress positions” for 180 hours
-We waterboarded prisoners until they started vomiting
-One prisoner died of hypothermia while chained to the floor
-At least five prisoners were subjected to a procedure known as “rectal feeding”
-Prisoners were routinely paraded around naked with their hands shackled above their heads
-One detainee was “chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper, and forced to go to the bathroom on himself”
-Prisoners were regularly subjected to mock executions during which they believed that they were about to be killed
-U.S. interrogators regularly threatened to physically harm, rape and sexually abuse the families of prisoners
And of course this report only focused on a small portion of the prisoner abuse that has been going on all over the world for more than a decade.
Once again, I want to warn you that the material in this next section is quite graphic.
But Americans need to be faced with the horrific truth. That is the only way that things will ever change.
The sadistic behavior of American personnel at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility in 2003 is almost too horrible for words. The following are highlights from an official U.S. Army report about the events that took place at that prison that you can find at nbcnews.com. Are these the kinds of things that “good guys” would do?…
*Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet
*Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing
*Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear
*Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped
*Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them
*Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture
*Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture
*A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee
*Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee
*Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees
*Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick
Have you seen enough yet?
But perhaps even more disturbing is the way that the rest of the country is responding to these revelations.
Where is the overwhelming public outrage?
Where are the calls for those involved in all of this torture to be fired from their jobs and arrested?
It has now been documented that the CIA blatantly lied to Congress and to the American people over and over about their sadistic torture of prisoners.
So who is being held accountable?
Who is losing their jobs at the CIA?
Who is going to prison?
Sadly, the truth is that this torture report will be “news” for about 48 hours and then it will disappear from the news cycle.
And Barack Obama sounds like he has absolutely no intention of ever holding anyone accountable for what happened. The following is an excerpt from a statement that he just made regarding this terror report…
“No nation is perfect. But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better. Rather than another reason to refight old arguments, I hope that today’s report can help us leave these techniques where they belong—in the past. Today is also a reminder that upholding the values we profess doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us stronger and that the United States of America will remain the greatest force for freedom and human dignity that the world has ever known.”
The “greatest force for freedom and human dignity”?
He has got to be kidding us.
And of course neocons such as Dick Cheney are staunchly defending the use of torture…
Former Bush vice president Dick Cheney staunchly defended the interrogation program, telling the New York Times it was ‘absolutely, totally justified’.
He denied the CIA withheld any information, and emphasized the program had been vetted by the Justice Department.
‘As far as I’m concerned, they ought to be decorated, not criticized,’ he said of the CIA interrogators.
When our politicians make statements such as this, they make the world a more dangerous place for Americans.
Right now, there are hundreds of millions of people around the planet that truly believe that the United States is the most wicked nation on the globe. And when we sadistically torture our prisoners, we give them a reason to feel that way. Therefore they feel justified when they commit heinous acts of terror against us.
If we do not want the rest of the world to compare us to Nazi Germany, we have got to quit behaving like Nazi Germany. And of course the torture of prisoners is just one area where this is true. For many more, please see my previous article entitled “25 Signs That America Is Rapidly Becoming More Like Nazi Germany“.
Please share this article with as many people as you can. I know that some of the material in this piece is quite graphic, but we have got to wake the American people up while we still have time. Our nation is coming apart at the seams, and we desperately need a change in direction.
