AMERICA: THE TORTURE STATE

From the New York Times editorial board:

What the F.B.I. Agents Saw

They were described in a painful report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, based on the accounts of hundreds of F.B.I. agents who saw American interrogators repeatedly mistreat prisoners in ways that the agents considered violations of American law and the Geneva Conventions. According to the report, some of the agents began keeping a “war crimes file” — until they were ordered to stop.

These were not random acts. It is clear from the inspector general’s report that this was organized behavior by both civilian and military interrogators following the specific orders of top officials.

And

The study said F.B.I. agents reported this illegal behavior to Washington. They were told not to take part, but the bureau appears to have done nothing to end the abuse. It certainly never told Congress or the American people. The inspector general said the agents’ concerns were conveyed to the National Security Council, but he found no evidence that it acted on them.

Mr. Bush claims harsh interrogations produced invaluable intelligence, but the F.B.I. agents said the abuse was ineffective. They also predicted, accurately, that it would be impossible to prosecute abused prisoners.

Click here for the rest.

The evidence just keeps piling up. Not only have American service personnel engaged in the illegal and extraordinarily immoral act of torture, repeatedly, but those actions were also approved and ordered by the President himself. This is no longer in any way disputable. It's a fact. Yet the American public seems to not care. Congress, now controlled by Democrats, does nothing. If ever there were a case of an American President committing high crimes, this is it. This is why our founding fathers, the framers of the Constitution, included impeachment among Congressional powers.

But nothing is happening.

The only conclusion a rational citizen can make is that America is now profoundly dysfunctional. Our constitutional republic, our modern democracy, no longer functions. The United States of America, the nation I've loved deeply my entire life, no longer exists--sure, we're still here, living in a nation called the USA, but all our sacred values have been rendered meaningless. By the entire political establishment. By a citizenry that doesn't concern itself with the affairs of its nation.

I mean, I continue to hope that everybody comes to their senses, that Congress moves to impeach Bush, impeach everybody in the White House, and then throw them out of office and into prison for the rest of their lives. That Congress will restore our great republic to its former (mostly) moral status. But I'm pretty certain at this point that it's not going to happen. Democrats and Republicans alike are completely willing to sacrifice our most foundational principles for personal reasons amounting to not much more than a desire to stay in power.

And what's particularly disgusting is that this sets a grave precedent: Congress, through its inaction, through its shirking of Constitutional responsibility, is essentially telling all future Presidents that torture is now the American way.

I'm so disgusted and horrified. Is this how German citizens of conscience felt while the Nazis enacted the first round of anti-Jewish laws? We've asked for six decades since WWII how the German people could allow it all to happen.

We've finally got an answer, America: just look in the fucking mirror.

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