The Temple of Ultor

November 14, 2005

I couldn't have said better.

I believe this editorial is orignally from the Miami Herald . I'm horrified and disgusted that we even have to ahve a discussion about this.

Well, I guess that settles that.
"We do not torture," President Bush said on Monday. Never mind all those torture pictures from Abu Ghraib. Never mind all those torture stories from Guantanamo Bay. Never mind the 2002 Justice Department memo that sought to justify torture. Never mind reports of U.S. officials sending detainees to other countries for torture. Never mind Dick Cheney lobbying to exempt the CIA from rules prohibiting torture.
"We do not torture," said the president. And that's that, right? I mean, if you can't believe the Bush administration, who can you believe? No torture. Period, end of sentence.
But . . . What does it say to you that the claim even has to be made?

After the end of World War II, the US led the way in developing a (dare I say it?) new workd order, a more civilized and lawful world than the one which had allowed the atrocities of the Nazis and Japanes (yes, and our own as well). This was, as everything, not purely altruistic. We used it to make the Soviet Union look bad at every opportunity (and it wasn't difficult, nor undeserved). I guess the neocons figure that since the Soviet Union is gone, those old ways are....quaint.