Tuesday, November 08, 2005

We don't torture, so we don't need a law

Riddle me this Batman.......

In Panama City, Panama yesterday, The Chimpanzee-in-Chief defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful. "We do not torture," Bush declared in response to reports of secret CIA prisons in foreign countries and at Gitmo.
In published reports he is quoted as saying:

We're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it
possible, more possible, to do our job. There's an enemy that lurks and plots
and plans and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet we will aggressively
pursue them. But we will do so under the law.

At the same time that the Chimpster is spinning, his boss Lucifer Cheney is lobbying Congress to allow the CIA to be exempted from anti-torture legislation that is sure to pass Congress.

What is wrong with this picture? If out of one side of your mouth, you're telling the world that we don't torture prisoners, while out of the other say that we need loopholes that make torture legal, aren't you really telling everybody that we DO torture prisoners and that making it illegal would hinder our intelligence-gathering capabilities? Aren't you really telling the rest of the world that the "end" (stopping al-Quaeda) justifies the "means" (thumbing our nose at international law)? And what of our righteous indignation over the treatment of those kidnapped by the insurgents and their agents? How does a picture of Lynndie England riding herd jibe with our pledge that we don't condone or practice the very barbarism that we attribute to the "evil doers?"

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