Torture Begets Torture Posted by Suzanne Nossel

We're all horrified, but is anyone really all that surprised that the Iraqi government has been found torturing some 175 Sunni detainees in a heretofore secret Baghdad bunker:

• After witnessing the absence of any serious consequences for the senior military personnel in charge of Abu Ghraib, why should top Iraqi intelligence and military officials responsible for the facility have worried that they would get into trouble?   After all, the stress and challenges they face in battling terror are at least as great as those we confront.

With revelations less than a week ago about secret CIA prisons where god knows what goes on, how can the American military leaders in charge in Iraq possibly take a forceful stand in response to what they've found?   

With the Vice President of the United States insisting that intelligence agents be exempted from regulations barring torture, why would Iraq's government think twice about giving their intel officers a similar free pass?

We should never have Americans in a position where we have to hold back in condemning torture around the world for fear of what might be revealed about the actions of our own government.   Some progressives think torture of detainees is a tough issue for us.  It's not, and this story is just one of the reasons why.

Comments

[doc]

- wow: the silence is so...stupid.

i remember not that long ago a huge to and fro over torture on this site. but, i guess that was when there was still a 'reasonable' possibility remaining that the US wasn't torturing people; and, if we were, well, that was okay, because it wasn't really torture; and if it was torture, well, tat was okay because we are right...good krist, what a crock.

now that the murder of crows in iraq has fully exposed our culpibility, where are the inane dittoheads?

[doc]

italics off

[J Thomas]

Doc, I expect they haven't received their talking points yet. Why should they troll here when they haven't been told what to say?

[doc]

J Thomas

- point taken; i always forget the obvious...

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