Isn’t it good to know that the Karzai government’s torturer in chief has managed to get asylum in the United States? Doesn’t it comfort you to know that he’s living in a “pink two-story house in Southern California, on a street of stucco homes on the outskirts of Los Angeles”?
You can read the whole thing if you want to be really depressed. The legacy of the Bush years just keeps getting worse. We don’t really have a leg to stand on. The CIA basically hired this guy, gave him all the resources he needed, handed over prisoners to him for years, and then (probably) arranged for him to come here when he became too much of an embarrassment abroad.
Did I expect that the US could have convinced the Afghans to be gentle to their prisoners after decades of civil and ethnic war? No. But I did expect that we would at least set a guiding example. And we didn’t. Our own torturer in chief walks free and pens columns defending torture in the Washington Post. So, what happened to that shining city on a hill?
I just want someone held accountable, even if they shop at Richard Cohen’s Safeway.
If it were just the “legacy of the Bush years” that requires sweeping away, I’d be hopeful. It’s not. It’s 99% of what has infected this country since a majority cheered on the “splendid little war” in SE Asia. The minority appreciated what needed to be done here in the law, economy, and environment at that time if peoples everywhere were to live dignity and freedom from basic needs. The tasks then before us were within our capabilities. None of that was done. Now they probably far exceed our abilities. And that’s truly depressing.
(Dare we mention that the Afghan “torturer in chief” was admitted to this country under team Obama’s watch? Is free. While Chelsea Manning will languish in prison for decades to come.)
School of the Americas. And the dynamos the CIA used to attach to the genitals of Viet Cong during Operation Phoenix. Death squads in Latin America. Soccer stadiums.
I wouldn’t lay any of this on the Afghanis. We’ve been in the torture long before we ever heard the name Osama.
torture business.
If we ever want to have torture back in the box of “things that NEVER EVER are okay”, then it will have to be applied to american right-wingers. As long as they can convince themselves that torture only applies to “the other”, then they’ll keep pushing it.
And there’s a way to do this: waterboard Terry Nichols, OK Bombing co-conspirator and terrorist, in federal custody. No doubt there are other conspirators that Mr. Nichols failed to mention previously.
Then follow the chain. OR, we could just prosecute, sentence and punish the torturers, but that seem to be too hard.
It took 100’s of thousands of deaths and massive destruction to rid the USA of the “crime against humanity” of slavery. Rooting out a cancer in the body politic is never easy, nor pain-free.
You need to look forward, not backward as our President has always said.
Please start looking forward.
I want a death metal band to name itself “Richard Cohen’s Safeway.”
me, too.
What else do you have to do with collaborators (cough Gen. Thieu) in order to ensure you continue to have collaborators?
Those who were not collaborators were called illegal immigrants or “boat people”. Remember?
And which collaborators are most likely not to survive the peace, eh?
Anyone that didn’t consider this prior to supporting GWB’s Afghan and Iraq adventures was a fool. It was one of many factors that informed my conclusion that rushing off to start a war in Afghanistan was a bad idea.
The US was never a city on a hill. Not that were worse than other countries with equivalent power. Don’t miss something that was never lost.