First-person account of CIA torture survivor
Today's Salon features a long first-person account of Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, who was kidnapped to a CIA "black site" torture camp. It's strong and scary stuff, and the people responsible deserve to be hauled into court, shown up for the criminals they are, and stuck in a cell for the rest of their lives. The traitors in government who sanctioned this program should join them. Torture is a cancer. Extrajudicial imprisonment is a cancer. These things rot democracy. They rot nations.
Link
The CIA held Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in several different cells when he was incarcerated its network of secret prisons known as "black sites." But the small cells were all pretty similar, maybe 7 feet wide and 10 feet long. He was sometimes naked, and sometimes handcuffed for weeks at a time. In one cell his ankle was chained to a bolt in the floor. There was a small toilet. In another cell there was just a bucket. Video cameras recorded his every move. The lights always stayed on -- there was no day or night. A speaker blasted him with continuous white noise, or rap music, 24 hours a day.The guards wore black masks and black clothes. They would not utter a word as they extracted Bashmilah from his cell for interrogation -- one of his few interactions with other human beings during his entire 19 months of imprisonment. Nobody told him where he was, or if he would ever be freed.
It was enough to drive anyone crazy. Bashmilah finally tried to slash his wrists with a small piece of metal, smearing the words "I am innocent" in blood on the walls of his cell. But the CIA patched him up.
So Bashmilah stopped eating. But after his weight dropped to 90 pounds, he was dragged into an interrogation room, where they rammed a tube down his nose and into his stomach. Liquid was pumped in. The CIA would not let him die.
Earlier today I read this saying from the movie "Gorky Park":
Arkady Renko: Too many people in our society disappear. They fall into a gulf.
Professor Andreev: What sort of gulf?
Arkady Renko: The gulf between what is said and what is done.
The Hindus have another saying:
What you hate, you become.
Earlier today I read this saying from the movie "Gorky Park":
Arkady Renko: Too many people in our society disappear. They fall into a gulf.
Professor Andreev: What sort of gulf?
Arkady Renko: The gulf between what is said and what is done.
The Hindus have another saying:
What you hate, you become.
How many more of these accounts do we need to hear before Americans shake the crippling fear from their shoulders and take this country back?
How can anyone see these goings on as a positive thing for either America's image or America's security? How many more victims of this inhumanity do we have to hear of before we realize that we are the enemy?
I wish it would end, Cory. And, I wish I didn't have to live in a nation so evil, so gutless and so foolish. This is not my America, and I sure as hell can't imagine anyone with even an ounce of humanity who could say honestly that they are proud of this nation.
We should be ashamed.
t's nt fr, Dn, bt rthr, mxtr f tw thngs:
pthy nd dsblf.
pthy bcs tlkng bt t s sy. Dng smthng bt t s hrd. Wh hr wnts t nlst n th C? Wh wnts t rn fr cngrss? Ths r th bst wys t fx prblm: frm th nsd t. Fw ppl fl strngly ngh tht thy wnt t gv p n thr crrnt lfstyl t g nvlv thmslvs n rl ntrvntn.
nd th dsblf, frnkly, cms frm th pr trck rcrd whn t cms t ccrcy n lt f lbrl vs cnsrvtv typ sss. Th wrdng sd n th clssfd dcmnt stry s n xmpl -- s f ll clssfd dcmnts wr drty scrts tht ndd t b shrddd. Ths n th knw rlz tht mst clssfd dcmnts r ncrdbly brng stff. f y typ "Hll, mm" n clssfd cmptr nd prnt t t, tht dcmnt s, by dflt, clssfd, nd mst b thr d-clssfd r shrddd.
r th whl Wlt Dsny stry whl bck, whr th stry ws tht WD stl th Mcky Ms dsgn nd drv th rgnl crtr nt th grnd, bt PBS dcmntry dsprvd th whl stry.
r th stry bt hw th R sys t's llgl t rp CDs -- xcpt tht f y ctlly rd th cs, wht thy SD ws t ws llgl t rp CDs nd thn shr t th cntnts vr Kz.
Frnkly, th cnsstnt xggrtns md by th lft rn thr crdblty. Th Dsny stry ws wrng. Th R stry ws wrng. Th shrddng stry s rddld wth slly, xggrtd wrdng. Hw m sppsd t gt p n rms vr th stry f Mhmd Frg hmd Bshmlh? fl lk f wt 3 dys nd cm bck t ths tpc, smn wll hv fnd PBS dcmntry tht prvs h ws lyng bt th whl thng.
Bfr cn gt p n rms bt t, 'll nd t d sm f my wn rsrch.
Actually, no, the RIAA brief recanted their earlier statement to the SCOTUS, saying that ripping CDs was unauthorized. You just misunderstood it.
Likewise, your statement about shredding -- the story is that shredding budgets are rising at an unprecedented rate. You dismissed this by saying "Shredding isn't sinister." But you missed the point -- that shredding is *increasing* at an unprecedented rate.
As to Walt and Mickey -- Ub Iwerks createdt he modern Mickey Mouse while working for Walt. Walt's originalo Mortimer/Mickey bears only a mild resemblance to the mouse that achieved commercial success.
RealCatholicMen wrote, "Frankly, the consistent exaggerations made by the left ruin their credibility."
Good point, RCM. Thank God for the right-wing blogs, which never exaggerate nothin'.
Who do you really work for RealCatholicMen? We know that the conservative extremists pay people to post comments on blogs. Many extremist bloggers like Michele Maulkin among others are paid directly by the GOP. Who pays your bills?
Frankly, I don't think you're a real man at all.
The White House is run by thugs. They are ruining our country.
I think it is just a measure of who we are.
All the time I was growing up, I was impressed by how readily the "jocks" or jerks in general would take the weak, disenfranchised kid out someplace and beat the bajeebas out of him for some lame excuse--really, just to take out their own fears and frustrations. Nobody in school saw that as a norm except those who had to deal with it.
I thought I would be glad to be an adult, when that crap was over with. But it didn't change. It just shifted a bit.
Maybe there is some "revenge of the nerds" in adult life. And there may be some transformation of thuggery into coercive manipulation and "middle management." And all to many who were victims in school seem to be out to be perpetrators in adult life.
The thugs haven't had any sort of epiphany. They remain among us.
To the extent we don't have a better answer, we let them have power and look away, unless it gets way out of hand, just like we and the faculty did in school.
Just another day in George Bush's America. The U.S. loves Geo. Bush. We elected him and reelected him. Many of us will vote for a member of his party next year. Will we never learn?
Drink your Kool-Aid America, drink your Kool-Aid all you fundamentalists, drink your Kool-Aid all you Republicans.
One day, they'll take your sister, your brother, your father or your mother. But, you probably won't notice. You'll be too busy, either playing your video games or going to your second job, so you can pay down your credit card debt.
The extract you provide reads like something from "An Evil Cradling", Brian Keenan's book about being kidnapped by a militia in the Middle East. There was outrage from the Government in the UK (where I live) about these kidnappings at the time but now, instead of outrage at your Government's exact same tactics, our Government is complicit. Something stinks.
Cry Dctrw wrt: "Ths thngs rt dmcrcy".
LL, wht dmcrcy ???
Dmcrcy s smthng prctcd n ncnt thns lng lng tm g. Tdy , t's jst nthr msk fr fscsm .
Ths wrd, lng wth "cmmnty" mst b th wrs spn wrds f r g.
Th snr ppl strt rlsng ths nstd f pthtclly whmprng bt "dmcrcy" nd nn-xstnt "rghts" , th snr w cld pssbly s sm rl chngs.
Th cn s qt smpl, rlly. t's ld t n th vrs cnstttns f th s-clld dmcrtc ntns: Tht "ctzns" hv "rghts", thrby gvng wy th pwr t dfn ths rghts t th wrtrs nd r-wrtrs f sd cnstttns nd thr shdy prtnrs.
s sn s ppl ccptd ths cnstttns , thy hd bn cnnd nt gvng wy thr frdm nd cntrl f thr wn lvs t ppl thy hv nvr ctlly mt. Ths s hw Msnc mgc wrks, by bndng ppl thrgh thr wn wll, wth thr cnsnt.
Th S f strtd s Msnc prjct t crt n rtfcl scty nd cltr f wllng slvs , brnwshd nt chntng "w r fr , w r S fr" whl dng th wrk f thr mstrs, bng pwns n gm thy r cmpltly ncnscs f.
S lt f ppl tdy fnd t hrd t blv tht sch thngs cn hppn n "dmcrcy" , whn n fct by sng tht wrd thy r plyng lng t th wll f thr mppt mstrs.
"FRDM S NT FR" sys n f th S ntnl mnmnts, n hg lttrs. nd th mppts blv tht , nd blv thy hv t fght fr thr frdm. Ths tnnt sys t ll rlly, nd sts th stg fr thngs th Nzs wld b prd f.
f y thnk my rntng s xtrm, myb hv nthr gd lng lk rnd. vr hr w hv dmcrcy, whl ths gns vr thr hvn't , nd thy nd t b lbrtd , rght?
Myb f w gv thm ll lptps nd n ntrnt cnnctn, th glbl vllg wll bcm rlty nd w'll ll lv hpply vr ftr, hr hr hr.
http://www.ytb.cm/wtch?v=WLRHHL&ftr=rltd
ywrck!
I think jail is too harsh a sentence for these torturing thugs. I think it's too harsh for anyone who is beyond rehabilitation. The only humane thing to do is to gently and painlessly put them out of our misery. It's cheaper, too.
The problem is, at this point, whether it actually happened or not, this is totally believable.
If you had come to me and explained this during Carter's presidency or even Reagan's, I'd be disbelieving.
No way, that's crazy talk.
But now, yeah, I consider it completely possible, even probable. And whether or not it actually happened this way, THAT'S a bad place to have gotten to.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."
We haven't been reading our Nietzsche, apparently. Well, I guess the men in charge haven't been reading much at all (except maybe Deuteronomy).
My family's been in the States for more than 200 years, I'm starting to think it's time to cut our losses.
@Messinger: The U.S. loves Geo. Bush. We elected him and reelected him. Many of us will vote for a member of his party next year.
In the immortal words of Tonto, "What you mean 'we,' white man?" (I should not assume you're either white or a man; you take my meaning.)
My point being, the U.S. does not love Bush. He is REVILED, even by lifelong Republicans. He is a stain on their record that they may publicly champion but privately cringe at. And to be completely accurate, he was not elected in 2000; he was selected by the SCOTUS. Plus the jury is still out on whether there was significant interference in Ohio, both administerial and electronic. Like rendition and black sites, our present difficulty in maintaining focus on any one issue beyond the news cycle is not an indication of its truth or lack thereof.
From what I've heard, you can't trust information you get through torturing, anyway.
So what's the real reason why they do it?
It can't be considered a deterrent, because they're apparently picking random people, or people who have been turned in by others seeking rewards or satisfying personal grudges.
So, is it just because they want to hurt people, because they constantly screw up? Maybe if they hadn't fired all those translators for being gay, they'd have decoded some intercepts in time.
As an aside, I find it pretty enlightening that the government will fire translators for being gay, and then will sexually abuse prisoners at Guantanamo by making them pose and do other things that would get the prisoners denounced, beaten, or killed at home as 'homosexual behavior.' Yet another thing our fundie crazies and theirs agree upon.
Hey Muppet, I hope you didn't think you sounded intelligent after all that blather.
As an aside, I'm happy that even CIA agrees that being subject to rap music is akin to white noise and listening to it is torture (not that they would admit it, but they use it as such)
"A speaker blasted him with continuous white noise, or rap music, 24 hours a day."
Not that I'm against rap, but I'd prefer white noise to most of what you can get on the radio.
Humans torture people for the same reason humans advocate retributive justice: it feels like the right thing to do. Both in the article itself and in replies here there have been comments about what the torturers "deserve", taking for granted that one can somehow rationally justify the idea that they "deserve" some particular treatment, as if there were a moral law from which it followed that "for every crime there is an equal and opposite punishment."
But this is not the case. The feeling that certain behaviour "deserves" a certain response is a deep part of human psychology and a vital regulator of human affairs. It cannot be dispensed with as a principle of human social organization, although it has no place in law. But it is a mistake to think that we feel people "deserve" to be "punished" for any reasons other than our own psychological well-being.
There are, of course, rational justifications for some forms of retributive response to anti-social behaviour: deterrence, behaviour modification and restitution are the obvious ones. But these are almost never the principles that live at the heart of retributive justice systems. "Desert" and "punishment" are.
The problem with the notions of "desert" and "punishment" is that, having no objective basis beyond human psychology, they are extremely elastic, varying widely between cultures and individuals. Some people feel that killing convicted murderers is justified because they "deserve it". Others don't, and there isn't any way of rationally convincing the other side they are wrong because the feeling of what potentially innocent convicted murderers "deserve" is based on an objectively real psychological state that is independent of external facts.
Which brings us to torture. It is so well-known and uncontroversial that torture produces unreliable and inaccurate intelligence that it's hard to believe that anyone even pretends to advocate it on rational grounds anymore. Humans torture people because it feels like the right thing to do, in the same way humans kill convicted murderers--even the ones who later turn out to be innocent--because it feels to them like "the punishment should fit the crime."
So everyone out there who is full of righteous outrage and wants the torturers punished rather than stopped and subject to behaviour modification for long enough that they can never do this again is closer to understanding torturers than they might be entirely comfortable with.
Perhaps reference to Gandhi rather than Nietzsche is indicated at this juncture.
Cry,
ws rgng gnst th blggr's ntrprttn f th fcts, nt th fcts thmslvs. Th shrddng rtcl ddn't sy, "Lk t ths nmbrs. Wht's csng thm?" t bsclly sd, "Lk t ths nmbrs. Ths s hw mny drty scrts Grg Bsh s hdng." H ddn't vn ttmpt t spclt th cs -- h tld s th cs nd pstd my dsgrmnt wth hs cnclsn.
Nn,
Dn't b slly. s ths yr mdrn vrsn f th wtch trls? Shll dclr, " m nt wtch"? r wld y lk t t m p nd thrw m nt lk t s f snk r flt? ('m nly nncnt f drwn, f crs, nd f flt, 'm glty nd shld b klld.)
Hw bt rthr thn mkng prsnl ttcks, w dbt th sss? thnk tht's bttr d. Rqrs lss rp.
My pnt n ths thrd s t sy tht f blf s wntd n th tls f Mhmd Frg hmd Bshmlh, t wld b nc f thr rtcls wld m fr ccrcy, t. Crrntly mny f thm m fr snstnlsm t th xpns f ccrcy nd t frcs m t wndr hw mch snstnlsm s t ply hr, t.
Mny cnsrvtv wbsts r grssly snstnl s wll, bt tht's nt lcns fr vryn ls t mmc thr styl. n th shrt rn, y cn fght snstnlst rght wngrs wth snstnlst lft wngrs -- rlz tht th trth sn't nrly s ntrstng mst f th tm s fghtng snstn wth trth sms t b lsng bttl. n th lng rn, thgh, thnk y'r bttr ff gng fr th trth. t mks t s mch sr t blv y ltr nd vntlly th ppl brght n by snstnlsm rlz thy'r bng plyd nd wll strt t sk t th trth.
Bonewah, did you watch the youtube i linked to? That's yer definition of intelligence right there, sir/madam.
Anyway, have you really got something to say on the matter?
Jeez. Do we need unicorn chasers for political posts now?
The American Dream? More like the American Nightmare.
I hope that karma will bite the people responsible for these torture camps in their a**.
The same as with the people trying to soft-talk other torture methods, like waterboarding (US Congress AND Fox 'News', I'm looking at you)
Torture camp? Please, Cory. I call BS on Mohamed, however I'm not surprised Salon is eating it up.
RealCatholicMen:
No beacon of the truth is needed here. We know that men have been held in Gitmo or rendered for years without a trial. . No one debates that. Supporters of fascism such as yourself think a debate is needed to determine whether the men held there 'deserved' what they got. Are ou saying that their exaggerated claims of torture mean that a little torture was OK?
As for me I don't need a government to 'protect' me, and if I did the theory is that we can make such laws if we want. But we didn't. I don't need protection from a bunch of hungry men caught in Afghanistan.
The men who perpetrated these acts need to be identified and hounded for the rest of their lives, unless of course we can find them and punish them, along with their apolegists such as yourself. Aside from this there can be no hope for even the remaining fragments of the dream we called America.
License Farm
I love this argument. OK, fine, SCOTUS put their finger on the scale of (indirect) democracy and tilted the pans in Bush's favor. Whatever.
That still means that almost half of the valid electoral votes were cast for Bush, along with 49.999% of the popular vote in Florida. (Or 50.001%, depending on who you believe.) Do you really think that some vanishingly-small episilon factor is what makes the difference between a sick society and a well one?
The whole cottage industry that's grown up around Bush-bashing is nothing but misdirection. You can't blame Bush for this. It's not about Bush. It's about us. We failed to demand ethical behavior from our leadership, and we got what we deserved.
I cant beleive this is even an issue.
At least he still has his head.
You guys need to wake up and relize what kind of an enemy we are facing.If we have to "torture" a few prisoners to save one American life(even a liberal) I think its worth it.
Do you even know the definiton of propaganda?
How about rather than making personal attacks, we debate the issues?
Real men don't torture or even think that torture is a subject for "debate". That is the cowards path, is that what you are? Torture is not up for debate. That you think it can be tells me all I need to know about your state of moral decay.
Many conservative websites are grossly sensational as well, but that's not a license for everyone else to mimic their style.
Correct, it is no justification for sensationalism. However, while both the left and the right have their faults the distinction has been drawn sharper of late hasn't it? Torture is a bright shining line as far as I am concerned.
Under normal circumstances I would be somewhere in the middle, disgusted by the racism and fascist mentality of the right or amused by the silliness of the far left. But that was long ago. These are no longer normal times and I have been pushed more and more to the left by the unrelenting horror coming from the right.
I realize that the truth isn't nearly as interesting most of the time so fighting sensation with truth seems to be a losing battle.
Truth? I have yet to see any truth from you. You know, those pesky things called facts coupled with something called reason. No, I take that back. There was an earlier exchange where I did moderate my views because of something you said. So you see I am not as narrow minded as you might want to portray me.
However in this thread all you have done is play the concern troll. Are you paid for that? You have presented no contrary evidence at all. That makes me suspicious. It makes me think you are just playing a game.
2007 in America is 1938 in Germany.
If any other country were doing what we have been, the leaders would've been brought before a tribunal for war crimes. If this weren't America, George Bush would be standing before the court hearing the closing statements before his execution. Those are the goddamned facts and this is not the America that I was told existed of the people, by the people, and for the people.
#7 brings up an excellent point that I'd like to see a post on someday.
It's no secret that conservative advocacy groups pay bloggers and "independent newspapers" to advocate their cause.
A handful of college newspapers are funded in this manner, and are required to adhere to certain viewpoints. Most will jump through all sorts of hoops to hide this fact.
We have one at our university that has been causing quite a bit of trouble after its editors (and a few political bloggers) were given massive "scholarships" to start a smear campaign against the school. It's been an absolutely terrible ordeal for the university, especially since most of the attacks have been outright lies.
Say, can we stop pretending that there is no difference between the Right and Left in this country? Please? It's nonsense.
And can we avoid talking about euthanizing people? That doesn't help.
Per the knee-jerk, rather fuzzy-brained cynicism of people like Muppet: I'm sorry, but it just seems too cozily self-indulgent to me. Everyone knows things are bad, Muppet. The question is: what are you going to do about it? How about some concrete suggestions?
Finally (as long as I'm contributing my own rant here), to everyone who points out exaggerations and lies in the media, to no apparent purpose, I would just like to politely remind you that the truth is not something you get served to you on a platter. It never has been, and it never will be.
@#32: I'm not going to flame you. I will say this, though: I know you're under the impression that you have contributed something to the discussion here, but you haven't.
Everything you said in your last post is beside the point, motivated by emotion rather than reason, and is a rehashing of old news.
I won't ask you to say something pertinent or shut the fuck up, because I would never exhibit the kind of intolerance you showed when you said that.
Oo, Not a Republican, aren't you a speaker of forbidden truths. How very dangerous of you. I love that the desperate ploy of many conservatives now is to posture themselves as the last honest people in America. Never mind that they've been exposed countless times now as being utterly without scruples.
everybody has to accept the war in Iraq or stfu.
Mm, no, sorry, we don't have to. This is America and we get our say. I think you may have taken a wrong turn at Burma.
We went to war in iraq for the wrong reasons, but it was to take down an oppressive and sadistic leader, a good thing.
Wait, so the wrong reasons were actually the right reasons, is that what you're saying? You really get off on the doublespeak: "Intolerance of intolerance is intolerance!" Hey, whatever keeps you warm at night.
Nobody seems to mention how Saddam would put upwards of 10 prisoners in a room with hammers and saws, as well as various other crude weapons, and say the last man living is a free man. The men would then go on to murder each other in cold blood. But hey, we shoudln't do anything about that right? It was none of our buisness...
If you can't keep your own yard clean you have no business criticizing that of your neighbors. Especially when you're the one who got him the lease in the first place.
Man on Pink Corner: I love this argument.
That is not an argument. That's what we in the reality biz call a fact. It is not up for debate. Whether you believe he won Florida or the national popular vote is irrelevant to that FACT.
The whole cottage industry that's grown up around Bush-bashing is nothing but misdirection. You can't blame Bush for this. It's not about Bush. It's about us. We failed to demand ethical behavior from our leadership, and we got what we deserved.
There I will agree with you: the ultimate responsibility for our (s)elected leaders' actions and their consequences lays squarely in our laps. But in order to get to a point at which action might be taken, opinions must be swayed so that the process will be affected. If that requires a "cottage industry" of Bush-bashing, in this specific case, I do not have qualms with that. Certainly, they don't want for fodder.
@#36: your schoolyard taunts are tiresome, and not the least bit interesting.
The fact that you substituted the letter F for the word Fuck does not fool anyone into thinking your comments are anything other than crude posturing.
They are the bullying rhetoric of a political philosophy that is destined to go the way of the dinosaurs, and knows it. Hence the fear that screams out from your comments and opinions.
Please just acknowledge that your real problem with Muslim fundamentalists is that they are stealing the limelight from your own brand of fundamentalist reaction.
Maybe then your rhetoric will graduate from the playground and will be viable in an adult context.
Not @32: I'm not going to flame you, brother, just disagree with you.
Most of the people taken and interrogated were picked up at random, having been snitched on by people hoping for a reward, or just picked up in a random sweep. People standing in the wrong place when something bad went down in a -- surprise -- Islamic country. It may further surprise you to learn that the words "Islamic" and "fundamentalist" don't automatically link together; you can be one without being the other.
People like Feroz Abbasi, Moazzam Begg, Richard Belmar, and Martin Mubanga. The cases against these people were so good that, uh, nothing happened to them after they were released. Or Jose Padilla, who has been tortured into a near-catatonic state, who doesn't even trust his lawyers anymore; the case against him was so strong that, mmm, most of the charges so triumphantly trumpetted in the media on his arrest have been dropped.
See, this is why we have legal processes. If you get arrested, you are not, in point of fact, automatically guilty of anything. That isn't just an inconvenient theoretical point unfortunately reified as law, but a necessary basis for further investigation, for finding the truth.
But, lol, yes, I am intolerant of intolerance. I see no contradiction in that; it is a necessary feature of being tolerant. What would be the point of a tolerance that let itself be trampled on by trolls such as yourself? Get back under your bridge while I laugh at you. You're not important enough to hate.
"Torture camp? Please, Cory."
Kentivity, what's wrong with calling a spade a spade? Surely you don't prefer euphemisms?
It's a camp. They torture people there. People who are being held outside of any sort of system of law or justice, not even our own.
What should we call that?
We are all cozily, self-indulgently, talking about people being kidnapped and tortured.
And all we can do is state our position on the matter . What else is there we can do?
To those who say "so what are you going to do about it apart from bitch?" i say , ask yourself this question.
Me, I am going to bitch till the cows come home, and i hope lots of other people bitch as loudly as possible, because what Saddam was supposed to be doing in Iraq WAS NONE OF THE US's GODDAMN BUSINESS. And only the terminally deluded deny that the only goddamn business the US has any interest in is about who is going to control the oil resources in the Middle East.
To all the american war apologists here: Billions of people HATE the US not because they are jealous of your stolen wealth and plastic shopping mall reality, but because the US is acting like a global bully, rapist and cop. What happens outside your borders is none of your goddamn business, and if you make it so, be prepared for what you get.
War is war , and there are no rules. People will hit back in whatever way they can, because they are deperately trying to protect themselves against a hi-tech superpower.
Scd bmbrs hv lt mr gts thn cwrdly mrcns h-tch bmbng frm sf dstnc. Y r lsng ths wr, nd th nxt n, bcs y r n th wrng, nd y r cwrds. Hv y vr wndrd wht mks mddl-gd plstnn wmn wth fmls bcm scd bmbrs?
'll tll y wht, srl Znsts , wth S bckng, stlng thr lnd nd tryng t rdct thr ppl, tht's wht!
Bt n, n yr rcst dmb lttl prgrmmd mnds y thnk thy'r r ll crzy drty drkskns wh dn't dsrv t lv nd prspr.
Cn't y s hw nscr y r, tht y dmnd th trtr f ppl s y cn fl sf whn y drv t th mll n yr fk dmcrcy rn by nrtc, psd-mrlstc bgts ? hv y vr hrd f prtn Pprclp? Th Cld Wr? MKLTR?
ll s y cn hv yr chp gs !!! Bt n, ths r th rnts f prnd lftsts , srly!
Y'r t wk t ccpt tht y hv bn cnnd , y blv l, tht th S s th mdl dmcrcy tht ll th wrld shld b frcd t fllw, r ls thy r nms.
Y R th vctms f trrrsm, bt th rl trrrst s yr gvrnmnt nd thr prtnrs, wh hv scrd y nt spprtng thr crms gnst hmnty.
Y , n yr dtc , ggrssv, lph-prmt, crdbrd rlty, blv y r gng t plc th ntr plnt , tht yr gvrnmnt s crryng t th hrd bt nccssry tsk f nfrcng "dmcrcy" t th mst bckwrds crnrs f th glb, t lbrt ll ths pr ppl, ppl y knw nthng bt, nd cnnt vn prnnc th nm f thr cntrs rght.
Y'r t dtclly gstc t ccpt th fct tht Y HV BN CNND nt bcmng th pwns f ppl wh d nt gv sht bt y r yr stpd lvs. Y r bng sd t frthr th grdy nd mrdrs gnd f bnch f gngstrs wh wll nvr b stsfd ntl thy wn nd cntrl vrythng nd hv rdctd ll cltrl dvrsty nt glbl mrktplc nd wrk cmp srvng THM , NT Y, NT YR FMLY.
Thnk bt tht nxt tm y dl wth th RS.
Blls r lwys nscr, nd thy wll try t pr-mptvly nd blndy strk t t prtct thmslvs gnst thr mgnd nms. sn't t strng hw nms sm t b crwlng t f th wdwrk ?
Nw fck ff , y scrd , nscr vctms, cs y mkng m ls my gddmn sns f hmr!
Ah, nothing like a good rant!
@20 Tom:
Actually, given your argument that the problem of torture has more to do with evolutionary psychology than legislation (including acknowledging irrationality in human cognition), as well as asserting the reality of moral relativism, fits perfectly within the philosophical framework of Friedrich Nietzsche. I'm inclined to agree with your argument, and recommend everyone read On the Genealogy of Morals and Twilight of the Idols in particular.
Furthermore, the torture methods described in the Salon article derive from psychic driving regression techniques developed by Ewen Cameron. They were also used by the British on IRA suspects. Prolonged involuntary sensory deprivation induces personality/"soul"-destroying outcomes, without the obvious medical damage/scarring of physical torture. This is also why waterboarding is used; not because of the physical pain per se, but because of the psychological "sensation of drowning" that even pro-torture apologists will characterize that activity as causing.
That's not America.
That's not even Mexico.
BC Nws stry
Qt frm th stry:
>"Frm tht dy n, h nswrd vry qstn," Krk sd. "Th thrt nfrmtn h prvdd dsrptd nmbr f ttcks, myb dzns f ttcks."
S ccrdng t th BC nws stry, trtr ds ndd wrk nd dlvr vlbl, tmly nfrmtn tht hs dsrptd nmy ttcks nd svd lvs.
Tht's n ntrstng snppt f nfrmtn.
Prsnlly, dn't knw wht my wn stnc wld b, thr thn 'm gld dn't hv tht jb. Wtrbrd smn nd brk p plt t blw p skyscrpr, r dn't wtrbrd thm nd hv th bld f fw thsnd ppl n my hnds bcs ddn't d ngh t gt th nfrmtn tht wld hv brkn p th ntwrk.
Hs jb scks.
f y rd thrgh th stry, wht th C prtvs wnt rght nw s dcsn: wht's ccptbl nd wht's nt. W, th ppl, nd t dcd. W cptr n llgl cmbtnt wh hs bn dlbrtly trgtng cvlns. H hs th phn nmbrs f thr llgl cmbtnts wh ls trgt cvlns nd h knws th lctn f bg cch f wpns tht wll b sd t blw p cvlns. Wht msrs r w wllng t tk t gt ths nfrmtn?
Th C wnts n nswr bcs thy dn't wnt t b md t dcd smthng lk tht. thr w s cntry dcd t's ky r t's nt. Thr's prc n hnr nd jstc n n drctn, nd prc n bld n th thr.
wsh cld blv tht t nvr wrkd, bcs thn th chc wld b sy.
Mppt,
wld lk t prphrs n rq blggr rd smtms nd sy, "Y hv th rght mssgs dlvrd t th wrng ddrss."
Y'r tllng ll f tht t th mrcns, bt y shld tll t t th Syrns nd rnns nstd. f y cn blv th ccnts f ndpndnt nws rprtrs n rq, t's nt th rqs w'r fghtng nymr, t's mstly Sds, Lbyns, gyptns, Lbns, tc. Tll thm bt hw dldd thy r by thr ldrs, tll thm hw thy'r bng snt nt wr tht hs n mnng fr thm nd tht th rl vctms f trrrsm r n fct th "trrrsts" thmslvs, bng thrwn nt th mt grndr ll fr drm f pwr tht thy wll nvr gt t shr.
Dn't wrng yr hnds vr th crms f mrc f y'r gng t cmpltly dscnt th crms f ths mddl strn ldrs. Lt's hr lttl rntng gnst thr crms.
Realcatholicmen: As for "Either we as a country decide it's okay or it's not": that issue was decided long ago. That's why we have laws against it. That's why we are signatories to the Geneva Convention. Why can you not get that through your head? It's a really simple concept to grasp.
Maybe it's because you're not a lawyer. But I forget, it's we "lefties" who talk about things we don't have experience in.
Here's a quote from one of your posts: "It's a shame more lefties don't do a turn in the military just so they could actually speak from some experience and stop sounding so foolish."
Well, unless you have experience in being waterboarded, blowing up skyscrapers, writing a blog in Iraq, or in being Egyptian, Lebanese, or Saudi, maybe you should refrain from making comments like the ones above. By your logic.
Here's you again: "I mean, the goal is entertainment, not information, right? Who needs experts!"
You mean experts like John McCain, who is unequivocally against our using torture? Or are you more knowledgeable on the subject than he is? Spent 5 years in a North Vietnamese prison, have you?
T lsly qt th mppt clld l Gr:
" mn my nvr ndrstnd smthng whn hs slry dpnds pn nt ndrstndng t".
ndrstn!
Bullies are always insecure, and they will try to pre-emptively and blindy strike out to protect themselves against their imagined enemies. Isn't it strange how enemies seem to be crawling out of the woodwork ?
That is not a rant, it is the truth. That is why you will be attacked for it.
And let's not forget that it is the US , since the 60's or earlier who, via the CIA and fck knows what other ghouls, have been busily arming psychopaths , including the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and setting up puppet dictatorships all over the place so as to establish control . . . South America, Africa, Middle East and beyond.
And now they are trying to tell us about terrorists hounding them! Rp wht y swd, mthrfckrs! Dg yr grvs n th dsrt!
lv y wth n xcrpt frm pm wrt whl g:
Dvr ll y cn nw s thr s mr tm t rn t
prnk fls f fls fls rnd thck lk rbbr
blck mmbs thm wndmly nsnt th tr & fthrs
sd m wh syn th bshs r gnn brn n th dsrt
f r dys nd nghts sht n glrs svnty ml
rlrs fn nd ts n yr fc hrlqns grn...
If you support the war, and you support torture and unlawful captivity, that's great, you're entitled to that.
So enlist, or STFU.
What Muppet says in his original post is very important --
The whole concept of "rights as a citizen", by definition, limits freedom. The whole idea really amounts to putting legs on a snake. Unless, of course, your plan is to rule with absolute power.
Wake up.
I cannot understand the mental and moral gymnastics that conservatives in the US must undergo in order to justify torture (and yet at the same time insist "the US doesn't torture" and "water-boarding is not torture!") I suppose I can see how his description of what he endured can be parsed to "not really torture"-- the Syrians may have beat him, but the Americans just kept him awake. . . "that's not really torture, is it?" (Sleep deprivation was the favored tactic of the Soviets). Even if you can make an honest assessment that it's "not really torture", you cannot reasonably justify kidnapping, can you? It all seems like desperation to me, the CIA is confused and grasping at straws, they'll try anything.
This goes against everything I was taught that the US stands for, both in word and in spirit. Torture is used by evil men, dictators, psychopaths. Is that what the US wishes to be?
realcatholicmen said:
"So according to the ABC news story, torture does indeed work and deliver valuable, timely information that has disrupted enemy attacks and saved lives."
Is he telling the truth?
Devilstower
"It's hard to see Kiriakou's story as anything but an attempt to redeem the use of waterboarding, and other forms of torture, as effective means of interrogation. After all, say torture supporters, why would people keep using torture if it doesn't work?"
"Why? Because it's satisfying, that's why. Because when you have someone who you think is a bad guy in front of you, someone you think is scum, you don't want to befriend them. You don't want to feed them and give them some damn mat to pray on. You want to hurt them. And then hurt them some more. People want torture to be effective for the same reason that people endlessly sift statistics for some sign that capital punishment is effective. Because vengeance is fun."
Transcript of interview with CIA officer, John Kiriakou (PDF) part 1 and part 2
What one finds after reading this is (1) Kiriakou never witnessed the waterboarding. It was carried out by another group of individuals. (2) None of the information provided by Zubaydah concerned threats inside the United States. The bigger question becomes "is Kiriakou telling the truth?" How would we know? The tapes that would show if he is or not have already been destroyed.
Waterboarding is torture as defined in the Convention Against Torture & Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The US is a signatory to this convention which defines torture as:
Article 2 - No Exceptional Circumstances Warranting Torture
Article 3 - No State Party shall expel, return (”refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
Article 4 - Acts of Torture Are Criminal Offenses
Article 10 - Education & Information Regarding Prohibition on Torture Provided in Training
Article 16 - Each State to Prevent Acts of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
George Bush has committed war crimes.
Foofer and Muppet:
What are you guys, some sort of Christian Science sci-fi anarchists? And what's with the muppets? Is this a language only your twin understands, or what?
"And all we can do is state our position on the matter. What else is there we can do?"
Do us all a favor and become armed revolutionaries, or anarchist terrorists, or whatever, because that is what someone who really, truly believes what you say you believe should do.
Just please stop with the dire apocalyptic mutterings about what slaves we are and how we are being run by Masonic alien overlords, or whatever.
I actually prefer Realcatholicmen, who, although he's always wrong, and an amoral apologist for torturers and therefore dictators, at least makes a coherent argument.
PS: what's with the disemvowelled swear words like mthrfckrs? Are we not all adults here? And while I'm being a scold, let's retire once and for all the STFU thing. It's an intolerant sentiment, and abbreviating it doesn't make it any less uncivil.
Hey Nick D, give it up!
To take your complaints one at a time:
where did you get the Christian Science bit?
The word "Muppet" has been used before, hasn't it? You can't have missed it !
What makes you think i need to be told what to do with my so-called beliefs?
"make war with ideas, not with men"
And who said anything about alien overlords? The Masons are (just about) human. Perhaps they do unconsciously serve other-dimensional entities such as the Archons described by the Gnostics, but that's not so relevant.
Jst sk yrslf why y r bthrd by my psts mr thn by th psts f ths wh dvct wr nd trtr?
Language is a tool that can be put to creative use, and a weapon, but only the lesser minds take it 100% literally and proceed to apply it through violent acts.
Anyway, violence by itself will not resolve this situation, and terrorism (of all colours) has historically been exploited by fascists to justify repression.
Restriction of our freedom and delimitation of our possibility is embedded in our very language which conditions our thought, and so it is my predicament to subvert that language . Guanatanamo is the logical progression from "Freedom is not free" which is a word-virus.
You are welcome to your old-school conservative concepts of coherency. I am not here to argue, and this ain't something that will ever be resolved by argument of the kind you see on CNN.
Please do not betray us now that we have almost completely pwned the pro-war dupes!
Yeah, Muppet. Finally someone who knows the score.
What few people here to realize is that "Those Crazy Muslim Fundamentalists" are REALLY angry about activities the US government has been doing on 'our behalf'.
Iran is a good example: We deposed their democratically elected leader Mohammed Mosadej (we admit this, by the way), installed a terrible despot, supported Sadam (who tried to invade Iran and killed 2 million of them), and now we occupy two contries that are adjacent to Iran.
HELLO? Can you see why the Iranians might not like us? And so and and so forth for decades now in the middle east.
MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALISM IS A 'NATURAL' DEFENSE AGAINST THE INTEFERENCE OF THE US AND SOME OF ITS ALLIES. It would never have gained ground unless people felt no need for it.
And now we assume that simply because there are individuals that oppose us, that we ipso facto have the right to toture them?
Look, no one who tortures believe they are doing evil. They torture because there's no consideration in their minds that someone may WANT to oppose them for good reasons.
WAKE THE F UP. This will neve get better unless we take back our country from those disgusting savages, who launch pointless wars in order to pump our Blue state tax dollars into the hillybilly 'gimmee' states.
"I am not here to argue."
That's right. You're here to monologue, and post bad poetry.
This is a discussion forum. If you want to post monologues, I suggest you create your own blog.
Gods help me, but I can't stand the whole affair.
The summary alone was enough to make me want to bang my head against the wall.
I'm apathetic. About many things.
He was "kidnapped"? Somehow, I imagine his kidnapping involved being caught with a large amount of explosives.
I can't take any map seriously, where the cardinal direction given is "Mecca".
I can't feel any sympathy for a prisoner who attempts suicide and is indignant when his captors save his life.
I really cannot stand that an author would imply, specifically with his choice of words, that preventing a man from starving to death was a bad thing.
no, there shouldn't be torture, no, there should not be secret prisons... but when you come right down to it, i have to wonder: what does it take to get some impartial views over here?
He was "kidnapped"? Somehow, I imagine his kidnapping involved being caught with a large amount of explosives. (#58)
Oracle: I don't know the details of the case, either, but I don't think that every, or even most (not even 'many' for that matter) of the detainees have been caught indelicto flagrante (sp?).
Do you prefer "extraordinary rendition" to "kidnapping?" If so, why? (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just wondering.)
I think maybe you're misinterpreting the post if you think it's criticizing them for patching him up after his suicide attempt, or keeping him from starving.
#58, Oracle:
"He was "kidnapped"? Somehow, I imagine his kidnapping involved being caught with a large amount of explosives."
Perhaps you missed that paragraph from the article:
Bashmilah's story also appears to show in clear terms that he was an innocent man. After 19 months of imprisonment and torment at the hands of the CIA, the agency released him with no explanation, just as he had been imprisoned in the first place. He faced no terrorism charges. He was given no lawyer. He saw no judge. He was simply released, his life shattered.
You are welcome to your old-school conservative concepts of coherency.
The internet has not been kind to paranoid schizophrenics.
I can't feel any sympathy for a prisoner who attempts suicide and is indignant when his captors save his life.
You've never been tortured have you? There are some things worse than death.
what does it take to get some impartial views over here?
Whatever sort of wicked, oxymoronic violation of the laws of nature and the Universe an "impartial view" is, if such an unhuman thing were ever to occur, I think it should be destroyed on sight, not studied.
It would likely be some sort of aberrant, self-perpetuating phenomenon capable of destroying everything decent in humanity.
Agnot: an impartial view would cause a chain reaction that would destroy the Universe!
But seriously, the truth is too big to be understood by any human. That why we're all partial. We have only partial views of the truth.
If the detainees were caught with explosives, why wouldn't the Bush administration want to prosecute them IMMEDIATELY?
Most of these so-called "terrorists" have been in Gitmo for several years with no contact with lawyers, representatives or even the Red Cross.
If they are so obviously guilty, let's put them on trial and convict them and send them to jail or the chair!
Here's a good interview with Clive Stafford Smith, a human rights lawyer who is representing a lot of prisoners being held at Guantanamo.
He describes the bad conditions there and how the prisoners (most who haven't been charged with and won't be told why they've been held prisoner for years) are tortured.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15839964
Iran is a good example: We deposed their democratically elected leader Mohammed Mosadej (we admit this, by the way),
That was Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. who did that in a colorful bit of CIA espionage. He wrote a book about it decades later, "Countercoup." The operation caused dissent within the agency and Roosevelt replaced the top CIA operative in Iran who quit rather than run the operation.
The CIA term, "blowback," so heavily used now, was coined in that operation.
installed a terrible despot,
The Shah had lost power once and when deposed again in the late 70's, from K. Roosevelt's installation, his visit to the U.S. for medical treatment resulted in the infamous hostage crisis.
supported Sadam (who tried to invade Iran and killed 2 million of them),
When Husein got permission to invade Kuwait from our ambassador to Iraq, I wonder if, in some twisted way, Husein took that as payment for his losses in attempting to invade Iran on our behalf.
and now we occupy two countries that are adjacent to Iran.
Technically, we don't occupy Afghanistan. However, in keeping with the normal irony of this entire debacle, Afghanistan may be the only country we should occupy, or least should have for a while longer.
Iran, Iraq, Irony. Even the similarity in words is ironic.
Slashdot | Guantanamo Officers Caught Modifying Wikipedia
Guantanamo Officers Caught Modifying Wikipedia -- ... we're paying at least one incompetent hack that money to lie to us on Web forums? ...
politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/16/1842258&from=rss
Recently it was revealed that the government classifies Gitmo prisoners based on their visibility by the Red Cross: full access, visual access only, or no access. Based on the accounts of these CIA prisoners I think it's pretty clear what happens to the no-access class.
To those of you that seem to think most of the people in secret US prisons are terrorists caught red-handed, you simply have not been paying attention. The record clearly shows that a huge number of these people are innocent. Many were picked up in the confusion after the invasions, or turned in for a bounty. And in any case NONE of them has received a fair trial. Certainly this is a basic human right afforded every person. Ask yourself: how can you trust that justice is being served without evidence, courts, and the rule of law? Only by living in a dream world.
In such a serious conversation, I'm almost embarrassed to say that I LOLed at "A speaker blasted him with continuous white noise, or rap music, 24 hours a day."
Almost.
Thank you BoingBoing.
Whenever I feel another bout of anti-US rage coming on, I come here to make sure that your country is actually deeply divided on most of the lunacy that the rest of the world has come to expect of America.
It doesn't even have to be a hated enemy that someone believes "deserves it" for this torment to came about. Just look at the things that happen to fraternity pledges or new recruits to a high school sports team, these are friends doing this sort of shit to each other for shits and giggles. Then look at the Stanford prison experiment. This secret prison thing is a bad situation that can only get worse as the advantaged guards make a game of showing their dominance over the defenseless prisoners.
Personally, if it were feasible to succeed, I'd say to support your local peaceful secession movement. All the states with money to fund this war have citizens that would rather have the option to wash the blood from their hands.
The US House of Representatives recently voted on a Bill that would require the CIA to follow the same interrogation rules as the Army: no more waterboarding, no more torture.
222 of them voted FOR ending CIA torture.
199 of them voted AGAINST ending CIA torture.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1160.xml
Dear fellow American Boing Boing reader,
The US House is one of the two parts of the Legislative Branch of the US Government, whose members are known as idio^H^H^H^H Representatives.
If you live in one of the 50 states, you have a Representative in the House who is elected to represent you.
If you don't vote, then it is your neighbors who voted this person into a public office.
#59 Nick D
Do you prefer "extraordinary rendition" to "kidnapping?" If so, why? (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just wondering.)
Gods no! "Extrordinary Rendition"? Do those words even mean anything together? it sounds like a review for a high-school play. "The Windsor Hills Theatrical School has put on an Extrordinary Rendition of 'Fiddler on the Roof'".
I prefer "Captured". It's the flattest, oldest, most honest way to say it. It implies nothing. A pawn is captured in chess. The flag is captured in a game with the same name.
"Kidnapped" implies someone being taken for ransom. It's over-dramatically applied in the summary.
#60 Malex:
Perhaps you missed that paragraph from the article:
I'll stop you right there. You nailed it. I thought I made it clear in my original post that the summary was sufficient to make me want to bang my head against the wall. I didn't bother to read the whole accursed thing.
Still, he could have been caught in the proximity of a large quantity of explosives. Just because he was innocent of the non-crime he was being held, illegally, for doesn't mean there isn't any evidence he wasn't guilty of the non-crime he was being held, illegally, for.
Maybe.
Thingy.
I'll get back to you.
@ #73: I'll stop you right there. You nailed it. I thought I made it clear in my original post that the summary was sufficient to make me want to bang my head against the wall. I didn't bother to read the whole accursed thing.
It's... it's like two pages. Are you seriously saying that you posted a whole screed about how Cory is overreacting and you couldn't even bring yourself to click the link?
I'm having my first child in about a week, and I have to say I'm really getting scared for the future of this country. Not because I think Islamo-Fascists are going to storm our beaches and install a Thousand-Year Caliphinate of Terror, but because the US is literally becoming police state.
Slowly, perhaps, and it may or may not ever reach the level of Pinochet's Chile, much less Hitler's Germany, but it terrifies me how many Americans simply can't bring themselves to even pay attention. This is exactly how Democracies die.
Well, I guess that decides it. Something has to be done. I only wish I had a better idea for action than bothering elected officials, which seems to be moving too slowly to help many of these people. My views expressed in print and online would probably bar me from intelligence work in the current administrative environment, so I'm left in a bit of a bind as to my next step.
In all seriousness, I need to save my country. Please advise.
I have a few questions for everyone:
1) What was he caputured for? We seem to have his side of the story and maps of his cell, why not his "alleged crime"?
2) Would you rather be held for an unknown amount of time and waterboarded OR have your beheading broadcast on the internet?
3) How would the average Muslim fundamentalist treat you, based on your personal beliefs?
Just curious
1) What was he caputured for? We seem to have his side of the story and maps of his cell, why not his "alleged crime"?
Most likely because he committed no crime. If our government had even an inkling he might have THOUGHT of looking at a U.S. corporate interest askance, you could bet your children's college fund this man would still be in his pain box. The fact that he was let go means that they had jackshit to hold him on, and likely never did, and such scared little boys in men's bodies that they couldn't own up to their mistake.
Would you rather be held for an unknown amount of time and waterboarded OR have your beheading broadcast on the internet?
I would rather be fed candies and cakes and brought skillfully to orgasm.
How would the average Muslim fundamentalist treat you, based on your personal beliefs?
Ah, the dodge. How "they" might or might not treat any one of us individually is irrelevant to a discussion of how we live up to the virtues for which we purportedly stand. No doubt there is a rabble-rouser on "their" side challenging moderate, logical thinkers to defend diplomacy when "we know how 'they' conduct negotiations!" And "they" would be right.
But there is no "they." There's only us all. You don't think this exact same conversation is going on all over the world, with just the names changed to protect the ignorant? And what you'd like to dismiss as naivete is in fact the ONLY thing that will cure this sickness running rampant at present. We're all on the same side because there is only one side, and the protestations of an individual or even a cluster under a common banner can never be a larger truth than that. I can be killed or tortured or humiliated, but what a pathetic, petulant act that would be in the face of the undeniable.
So peddle your dichotomies elsewhere. If you were actually "just curious" you'd go out and get those answers with your own eyes and hands and ears and heart. You want your fears echoed so they can be changed into hate, so you can make those you fear instead fear you more, and the cycle begins all over again. You won't get that here. Stop being afraid.
Standing ovation for License Farm.
Licence Farm,
The only thing I "fear" is that your bleeding heart is contageous. Fortunately, in this country, there is rule by popular vote (go ahead and start bitching about 2000 now, every other liberal still is...). Build a bridge and get over it.
All I was doing was (trying)to illustrate how many (if not most) of us think. I tried to read through all of these comments as well as the original article: it left me with my first question.
So please stop being a typical liberal and answer the questions or at very least offer a solution that is acceptable to the majority of voters.
Let the flaming begin.
Themage,
License Farm DID answer each of your questions rather thoroughly. I wonder, then, why you jumped right to the "typical bleeding heart liberal" sound byte.
In America, we don't have rule by popular vote, we have government by representative democracy, and that's an important distinction. If we did have rule by popular vote, we'd have voted ourselves out of Iraq long ago, since most polls indicate that nearly 70% of Americans disapprove of the war (http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm).
A solution? How about we stop using the tactics of terrorism (influence through fear)? How about we start abiding by our own laws, and the laws and expectations of the rest of the civilized world? How about we wake up and realize that throughout human history, at every level, from personal to international, violence has only led to more violence, with very few exceptions?
hv t! shll wrt bk dtlng hw ws pckd p by th mrcns whlst mndng my wn bsnss, drggd ff t n nknwn plc nd trtrd rptdly, pssd bck nd frth, bsd n nmbr f wys, hv my fth rdcld, nd thn frcd t t, bcs fr sm nknwn rsn ws t mprtnt fr thm t jst lt d. Tht's t. My stry s sr t b pckd p by Bng-Bng, gr vglnt sbvrsvs ll, nd my bk wll sll mllns! mst b sr t ht ll thr bttns.