Oh Lookee -- Sadists4Christ Have Been Running an UnConstitutional Theocracy All This Time!!

Yes, Virginia, there IS a Separation of Church and State. Well, sorta. But, you know, sometimes there just isn't, and so we have to do stuff we don't really wanna do. Like not having a separation of church and state. And like torturing people. We know it's wrong, but we do it anyway, because we had to. I mean, we had to.

Like Rummy had no choice when he blatantly shamelessly resorting to using specifically Christian battle themes and quotes as Bible propaganda to propagandize his message to the troops.

Sure, it's illegal. And unconstitutional. But God told him to do it? Well, I don't know what God did, reallly. I dunno. Does Rummy think that God's been updating His communication stream? Why separate church and statet when you can update church as state. It makes a brave new world, don'tcha get it? Next thing you know, Christ won't get tortured and die on the cross, He'll get tortured and then waterboarded to death. (Then we'll all be forced to wear little golden waterboards around our necks. . . ?)

Anyhow. Wow. This blatant bible stuff is real disturbing. I mean, sure looks like Rummy's got issues.

Hands up, boys and girls, if you think that little Donny Rumsfeld got the living crap beaten out of him on a regular basis by a big powerful omniscient omnipotent Daddy, one who told little Donny that it was all his fault that Daddy (or maybe Mommy) had to make little Donny pay for his misdeeds with pain?


---hat-tip to Revpaperboy at The Woodshed.

Scores Tortured to Death or Murdered in US Custody: Pro-"Life," Pro-Torture Crowd Revels in Moral Bankrupcty

What is wrong with these people?

Oh. Right. I remember now. They have no mirror neurons.

So much for the noble rules of war and the rule of law.

[T]he May 10, 2005, Bush Administration torture memo by Stephen Bradbury notes that doctors were nearby to perform a tracheotomy if during waterboarding the suspect is approaching death.

“Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue of psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness,” Bradbury wrote. “An unresponsive subject should be righted immediately, and the integrator should deliver a sub-xyphoid thrust to expel the water. If this fails to restore normal breathing, aggressive medical intervention is required….’”

The memo says CIA doctors were on hand with necessary equipment to perform a tracheotomy if necessary during waterboarding sessions: “[W]e are informed that the necessary emergency medical equipment is always present—although not visible to the detainee—during any application of the waterboard.”

Technorati Tags: torture, torture memos
torture memos

The Heartbreak of MNRS Goes On, But Unmanly Christian Minister Comes Out Against Torture!!

Every real Christian rilly needs to cowboy up. Especially this here minister guy, givng aid and comfort to the enemy, a lily-livered gentle Jesus freak minister Richard Land actually coming out against torture.

Sheesh.

Is nothing sacred?

Dr. Richard Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, says he believes the interrogation technique of waterboarding is torture because it inflicts personal physical harm and "contravenes an individual's personhood and their humanity."

In a statement, Land said waterboarding "violates everything we believe in as a country," arguing "There are some things you should never do to another human being, no matter how horrific the things they have done. If you do so, you demean yourself to their level." Land explained his stance to OneNewsNow.

"I support capital punishment, but I don't think I should support capital punishment unless I am willing to personally give the lethal injection," Land says. "Well, the more I thought about and prayed about it, I couldn't waterboard somebody -- and if I couldn't waterboard them, then I don't have the right to ask others to do it or to condone their doing it."

In his written statement, Land states he sees no circumstance in which torture should be a permissible interrogation technique employed by American officials -- "even if the authorities believe a prisoner has information that might involve national security."

Gol'durn long hair Pussy Christ and his long-haired Pussy Christ defenders. Get rid of them!

What did Jesus do while being tortured? Oh, he'd prolly said sompin' girlie-man like: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" or some shit like that, the pussy.

Why didn't He just take it like a man, and say -- "BRING IT ON!"

No wonder God forsook Him.

Yesterday's News

Nothing to see here. move along.

Is Rape Serious? Is Torture Serious?What About the Heartache of Mirror Neuron Retardation Syndrome?

Hey, there, boys and girls! Let's play pattern recognition!

What do these two stories and mirror neuron retardation have in common?



Nicholas Kristoff: Is Rape Serious? Answer: no.


Is torture serious? Answer: no.

But it pays well. CIA does.

Become a CIA Torturer. Thousand bucks a day.

That ain't workin.'

That's the way you do it.


Money for nothin' and the chicks for free.

Newsweek Whitewashes Waterboarding Torture: Would That Count As Numbing & Avoidance? Why, Yes! It Would!

This person, who is, apparently, a professional (sic) Newsweek media person, actually said this:

[T]o pursue criminal charges against officials at the highest levels—including the former president and the former vice president . . . would set a terrible precedent. . . . That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law . .

But -- sometimes they're above the law?

And this Newsweek person thinks that committing torture and undermining the rule of law does not set a terrible precedent?

What is wrong with the pro-torture crowd? What is wrong with their media whore media enablers? Why does this Newsweek person even have a job? Why is the media whore media working so very hard to spin and spew cute little minimizing numbing & avoidance fairy tales, working so hard to let torturers get away with torture?


Yes, thanks, Mr. Newsweek, I'd love to have another serving of moral bankruptcy. Please, sir, may I have some more?


---
Thoughts on teh Pro-Torture Crowd: Lambert. BTD. RJ Eskow.

Court Rules Gitmo Detainees Are Not Persons

See, if they were persons, you'd have to NOT torture them.

But if you change their label from PERSON to NON-PERSON, you can do anything you want.

Court Rules.

The Pro-Torture Crowd Retards Run Amok -- Empathy Will Get You In Big Trouble

Told you it was all about they're missing big fat chunk of their [empathy] brain, did I not?

Let's remember the death of this soldier:

"A. Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native, served with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq. . .

"The official probe of [Peterson's] death would later note that earlier [Peterson] had been "reprimanded" for showing "empathy" for the prisoners."


Come on, pro-torture retards. Come clean. This is what you did. In our name. Well, not in my name.

The soldier who refused to torture, Peterson, wound up dead.

Of course, Peterson's death is still being described as suicide? Pftt.
Tell it to the marines.

Why It's OK to Call the Pro-Torture Crowd "Retards"

That's because they're actually missing part of their brains.

OK, so maybe that doesn't make them retarded. It makes them handicapped.

Handicapped? Is that the right word? How about "deficient"?

We're not just talking about Cheney and Rummy. And Geoffrey Abu Ghraib Gitmo Colonel.

But talking head Peggy Noonan. She's not playing with a full deck, either.

And talking head Cliff May. Oy. I can remember way back when Cliff was Clifford, and a liberal. I think. Didn't think he was pro-torture. Why would anyone be? What happened? Did someone brainwash the miror neurons out of his brain?

Beyond finally acknowledging the dreadful state of moral decay that has crippled the empathy centers of vast numbers of Americans, there is the question of -- how did this plague come to pass?

Who or what removed/inactivated the mirror neurons from millions of Americans?

What happened?

Did Mommy long ago leave out the instruction on not doing shitty things to others, in particular, not hurting other living beings?


LEARNING MOMENT FOR GEORGE AND MOMMY

It's ok to kick a rock. It has no feelings.

Rock. Frog. They're different.

Stop. No. That's a frog, Georgie, don't put that firecracker in the frog, George. No. I said, no.

Stop it, George!

George, if you put a lit firecracker in one more frog, I am going to slap you silly.

There. [sound of slap]

Now, do as you're told.

Stop torturing those frogs.

[sound of brutal slap]

Got that, boy?





Yup. Got it.

Anyone for ahimsa?

Torture By Any Other Name Would Be "All-American Harsh Interrogation Techniques Move Along Don't Think Twice It's Alright"

How could anyone think that chinese water torture was unfit to become american water torture, eh?

Yes, it's that funny. Blame for torture now goes to failure to understand the lessons of history, thus being condemned to repeat it.

Haha.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

The top officials, not having studied that particular part of history, you know, the "we don't do shitty things to others" part, couldn't see that, well, drowning someone might, well, you know, be regarded as -- well, chinese water torture. No mirror neurons. Slept through that class in college?

Cyclic existence? Samsara as usual? We're sorry, nobody told us that pulling the wings off butterflies was wrong? What about putting lit firecrackers in toads? No one could have foreseen . . .

CIA/US Oympic Waterboard Torture Team Wins Best in Show

Well!

Don't these CIA guys and gals have the very best work ethic in the universe?

They sure were following orders!

Waterboarding people three times a day? Is that what is meant by "three squares"? Or is that a type for three quarts? Probably more like 3 gallons? I dunno. How much water does it take to drown a guy or gal? Not so much really. Plus, it's earth week. No waste water wanted.

But you have to admit the zeal of the US Waterboard Torture Team is/was magnificent.

So. Celebrate their success. Just do it. Instead of getting all bitchy and PMS and hot an bothered about silly pussy things like moral bankrupcty and undermining the rule of law, shouldn't we join Obama and Rahm and just STFU?

Shouldn't we be passing the hat around to support them, taking up a collection so they can afford to develop some mirror neurons?

Waterboarding [E.g. Chinese Water Torture] Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects.

2 suspects, eh?


Would that be -- Cheney? And Rummy?


Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Bushist Fascist Teabag Sadist Mafia Sez: Hey, There Boyz 'n Girlz! Remember --Torture WORKS!!

No, it's not like anyone likes inflicting pain on others. (Well, of course there was that toad-exploder thing, the dobsondogbeater thing, the vitter diaper thing, I forget what else. Oh. Yeah. The canned hunt/killing for fun kinda thing.)

How can we ever hope to save the all-important moral values of Western Christian civilization if we don't torture other people? AND -- their kids?

Abu Zubaydah had provided much valuable information under less severe treatment, and the harsher handling [eg. the torture] produced no breakthroughs, according to one former intelligence official with direct knowledge of the case. Instead, watching his torment caused great distress to his captors, the official said. [instant karma much?]

Even for those who believed that brutal treatment could produce results, the official said, “seeing these depths of human misery and degradation has a traumatic effect.” [told you so. and of course, you'd think a normal person, finally noticing that he was doing something "wrong" might u, you know, "stop."]

C.I.A. officers adopted these techniques only after the Justice Department had given its official approval on Aug. 1, 2002, in one of four formerly secret legal memos on interrogation that were released Thursday.

A footnote to another of the memos described a rift between line officers questioning Abu Zubaydah at a secret C.I.A. prison in Thailand and their bosses at headquarters, and asserted that the brutal treatment may have been “unnecessary.”

Unnecessary?

Oh. Ya think?

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

None Dare Call It Torture. Not Quite "None," But Close

However, turns out that NOT prosecuting torture is a violation of international law. Oopsie.

The United Nation’s top torture investigator has suggested it is illegal under International law for President Barack Obama to announce that the United States government has no intention of prosecuting low-level CIA officers who carried out torture sanctioned by the Bush Administration.

President Barack Obama’s release on Thursday of four Bush administration memos sanctioning torture has been widely praised. However, word that government will go so far as to offer a fully-paid legal defense for agents who applied torture techniques to terror war prisoners has triggered loud criticism.

“Like all other contracting states to the UN convention against torture, the US has committed to conduct criminal investigations of torture and to bring all persons to court against whom there is sound evidence,” Manfred Nowak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, told Austrian weekly paper Der Standard.

“They are party to the convention and the convention is very, very clear,” Nowak told the paper. “The fact that you carried out an order doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility.”

“In a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manfred Nowak [...] said the United States had committed itself under the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Note to teabaggers: pay your taxes like a man

This is why:

Desperate veterans turn to suicide.

You break it, you buy it.

Several branches of the military are reporting significant spikes in the number of suicides committed by both active-duty troops and veterans returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts are calling the number of military-related suicides sweeping the country an "epidemic."

Survivors of veterans who committed suicide are starting to file lawsuits, accusing the VA of medical malpractice. The agency also has come under attack by lawmakers and veterans' groups charging that it failed to treat injured veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The agency also has been accused of manipulating suicide statistics to downplay the problem and systematically misdiagnosing returning combat soldiers who suffer mental illness because their resources are tapped.

I wrote long ago about the cons deliberately mis-diagnosing PTSD in an attempt to deny services. Click on PTSD; I can't elaborate because I'm off to a seminar. On treating PTSD, as it happens. More later.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Torture. It's a Tough Job, But Somebody Has To Do It.

The US has to torture. The CIA has to torture. Preferably torturing by trained medical professionals, eh?

Because -- we can torture if we say it isn't what it obviously is.

Sort of like "a rose by any other name would ---" except backwards.

Anyhow, no wonder humans who did stuff like this -- you know, torturing -- might not want word to get out about it. Oh but wait. It's out. Well never mind. We'll get out of it somehow. Heck, we only torture because we must. We was only following orderss.

Here's some fun facts about the CIA's notion of patriotism in action:

Raise your hand if you think doing unto others the following things puts you in the category of "good person" (sic):

*Suffocation by water poured over a cloth placed over the nose and mouth...
* Prolonged stress standing position, naked, held with the arms extended and chained above the head...
* Beatings by use of a collar held around the detainees' neck and used to forcefully bang the head and body against the wall...
* Beating and kicking, including slapping, punching, kicking to the body and face...
* Confinement in a box to severely restrict movement...
* Prolonged nudity...this enforced nudity lasted for periods ranging from several weeks to several months...
* Sleep deprivation...through use of forced stress positions (standing or sitting), cold water and use of repetitive loud noises or music...
* Exposure to cold temperature...especially via cold cells and interrogation rooms, and...use of cold water poured over the body or...held around the body by means of a plastic sheet to create an immersion bath with just the head out of water.
* Prolonged shackling of hands and/or feet...
* Threats of ill-treatment, to the detainee and/or his family...
* Forced shaving of the head and beard...
* Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food from 3 days to 1 month after arrest...

The ICRC report further clarifies the report's frequent use of the term 'ill-treatment':

The general term "ill-treatment" has been used throughout the following section, however, it should in no way be understood as minimising the severity of the conditions and treatment to which the detainees were subjected. Indeed, as outlined in Section 4 below, and as concluded by this report, the ICRC clearly considers that the allegations of the fourteen include descriptions of treatment and interrogation techniques -- singly or in combination -- that amounted to torture/and or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

"Furthermore, nine of the fourteen detainees reported that they had been subjected to threats of ill-treatment that included waterboarding, electric shocks, infection with HIV, sodomy, arrest and rape of family, torture, being brought close to death, and interrogation sessions where "no rules applied."


How do torturers sleep at night?

Answer: not well.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace-Prize Winner, Banned from South African Conference on Peace: Guess We've Still Not Reached Peak Stupid

Nobel Peace Prize winner banned from a peace conference?

Yep.

Nope, I'm not making this up. I don't have to. I never have to.

Dalai Lama Banned from South African Peace Conference

"Nobel [peace prize] winners Desmond Tutu and FW de Clerk to boycott anti-racism conference in World Cup run-up after Chinese pressure forces ban on Tibetan spiritual leader


Two of South Africa's Nobel peace prize winners, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk, have pulled out of a Johannesburg conference to fight racism after what they branded as Pretoria's "disgraceful" decision to ban the Dalai Lama from attending following Chinese pressure.

The Nobel peace prize committee also said it would boycott this Friday's conference, which is dedicated to tackling racism ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

The row threatens to draw in Nelson Mandela, who, with his fellow South African laureates, invited the Tibetan spiritual leader, and further embarrasses South Africa, which has been accused of squandering its moral authority since ending apartheid by blocking UN security council moves to pressure rogue governments in Burma and Zimbabwe.

Tutu, who won the prize for his resistance to white rule, told Johannesburg's Sunday Independent newspaper he will not attend the conference to discuss how to use the World Cup preparations to combat racism and xenophobia if the Tibetan spiritual leader is not present. . . "

[hat-tip to billy-bob neck]

china loses face, dalai lama, south afric peace conference

Torture Is As Torture Does

Voices From the Black Sites.


Hat-tip to Anonymous Source.

Beating Some Sense Into the Non-Golden Rule Talibangelicals

On Christianity, Fundamentalism, Spanking, and What Constitutes Child Abuse

.

" . . the fundamentalist view of humanity is such that humans are viewed as sinful and hell-bound by nature. This rebellion must be addressed. The best way to save one’s child from hell is by “beating the hell out of him or her.”

In Grevens’ Spare the Rod: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse (1991) the notion of using physical abuse to “break the child’s will” is explored. It is the parental responsibility to break the will so that the child will conform to the parent’s wishes, thereby learning obedience to God.

How much force must be applied?

Most fundamentalist commentators state that the parent must remain fairly emotionless and turn a deaf ear to the protests of the child.

[Thus engendering numbing and avoidance in the the parents, btw, a classic symptom of PTSD.]

The child must be struck repeatedly until s/he begins crying profusely, for that is the sign of a broken will—the objective of striking the child in the first place.

Grevens demonstrates through much anecdotal evidence that the whole notion is fraught with difficulties. . . .Citing examples of well-known Christians reflecting on their childhood, a picture emerges of children waiting during the “cooling off” period, making deals with God, and pleading with God that they would not be beaten again.

As for the love part, Ruth Wilkerson Harris (sister of evangelist David Wilkerson) in her book, It was Good Enough for the Father: The Story of the Wilkerson Family (1969), recounts how the Wilkerson children, had to face the “humbling” of embracing their father after a beating and saying, “I love you Daddy. Forgive me for disobeying.”

[Thus teaching the important lesson that people who love you get to hit you and hurt you.]

Capps, in Religion and Child Abuse: Perfect Together (JSSR, 1992), points out that this mixture of anger, pain, beating, and love is very confusing to children.

[No, really?]

They likely come to view the ritual as a pain filled affair necessary to gain the parent’s love. They must surely long for a love that might, someday, be unconditional, with no beatings attached.

[or -- they might go the way of -- Vitter?]

They plead for God to deliver them. God doesn’t. As much anecdotal evidence indicates, as adults, such children do not thank God that they had a parent willing to inflict physical punishment on them and many grow up with a very confused image of God. They have been taught that God is all-powerful, yet God did not rescue them when they pleaded with God for mercy."

Hands up everyone who perceives the relevance of the non-golden rule Talibangelical presence in the military to the government-sanctioned sadism at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, CIA black sites?

I Don't Know What to Call This Post. Oh, how about: We Can't Care for the Children We Already Have, part 2

Colorado Springs: Father arrested for causing traumatic brain injury to his 14-month-old child.

"The fiancee said she saw the 6-foot-5, 285-pound Terry hit the child more than 50 times since October, the affidavit said, and squeeze the child's head, causing the couple to fear she had a concussion."

North Carolina: Babysitter shakes 10 month old baby; infant in critical condition. Later, baby dies.

Stockton, California: Bio Dad's GF booked on suspicion of torture, child abuse, child abuse resulting in death of a 3 year old girl.

Utah: Man shakes GF's 1 year old son, causing brain injury and permanent partial blindness; judge gives perp one year.

Redding, CA: Father & Mother Arrested For Physical Abuse of their Seven Children.

Maryland: Man charged with murder, abuse in death of 2 year old.

All I have to do to find these cases is Google: "child abuse" "news." Every day there are more stories.

This is what is out there. This is what actual people are doing to their actual kids, their significant others' kids, the kids they're babysitting. Social awareness & adequate preventive infrastructure? Nah. Not so much.

Anyhow, here's the pick of the day:

American Fork, Utah: Father faces murder trial in death of his 4 month old infant daughter

The medical examiner's report [on the child] details numerous skull fractures, blood on the brain, a lacerated kidney and blood in the lining of the abdomen, with the ultimate cause of death being blunt force injuries to the head, Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman said.

Provo police detective Mark Petersen testified that during an interview with Gardea, he confessed to punching Jasmin in the head and torso, hard enough that had he been hit that hard, it would have knocked him unconscious, said Buhman.

Sorry about all this. I'll try to write something perky next time.

What Was That the Bushist Fascists Were Saying About How Every Kid Needs a Mommy & a Daddy?

Not when Mommy and Daddy's parenting style comes right from Abu Ghraib.