warning: graphic torture images below.

Obama released the ’supposedly top secrect’ torture memos to a hail of media criticism; especially from our good buddy Karl Rove who said:

Now all of these methods are ruined!

Oh man, way to go Obama, you ruined all of the fun.  Fun?  That’s what Rush Limbaugh had to say on May 4th, 2004 (emphasis mine):

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we’re going to ruin people’s lives over it and we’re going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?

But even on May 3rd, 2004 he was at it (emphasis mine):

You know, if you look at — if you, really, if you look at these pictures, I mean, I don’t know if it’s just me, but it looks just like anything you’d see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage. Maybe I’m — yeah. And get an NEA grant for something like this. I mean, this is something that you can see on stage at Lincoln Center from an NEA grant, maybe on Sex in the City — the movie. I mean, I don’t — it’s just me.

Thanks to Media Matters’ diligence in keeping track of this stuff.

And to Obama: 

You wussed out on the opportunity to right, even marginally, some of the wrongs we have committed by not prosecuting the torturers.  Where is the ‘change’ we can believe in?

I don’t care who gave the order, I don’t care what kind of ‘ticking timebomb’-24-Jack Bauer scenario is unfolding, you do not torture.  But of course who am I kidding.  The higher-ups will get off scott-free.  But the stupid saps like Lynndie England and Charles Graner will always take the fall.

abuse1

Read up on the photos you didn’t see.  The ones that were banned because they showed forced sodomy on young Muslim boys and our fearless leaders were afraid of a backlash?

Do not forget Abu Ghraib.  Torture was not a secret policy.  America just decided to ignore it.  The rest of the world didn’t. 

And as the blog Amy’s Robot shows us back in ‘04, people were aware of what was going on enough to dress up for Halloween. 

lynndie_amy

 And what happens when dumb-asses across the world decide to post their picture to a sitededicated to making fun of what happened at Abu Ghraib?  A Lynndie is born?  I don’t think those idiots would be laughing if were American/English women who were raped in that prison.  Or American/English men made to commit sodomy on one another.

But what about the real torture?  The real humiliation?  Maybe this image adds a little sobriety:

iraq-prison-comfort

These were methods approved by a supposedly Christian president?

Honestly, it makes me wonder if other popular torture techniques from past empires made the list:

  • Flogging
  • Crown of Thorns
  • Crucifixion
  • Piercing

For the millions of Americans who haven’t left the comfort of their neighborhood Wal-Mart, let alone even thought about traveling abroad, the big bad world is a scary place.  This memo is being trumped up as even scarier and the Republicans are going to exploit that fear as much as they can.

Do not forget so quickly who got this ball rolling in the first place.  He was voted into office by the evangelicals, twice.  Nice work on the love your neighbor part.

The fact is, the rest of the world had been on the receiving end of a lot of our crap for a long time. In Central and South America.  In the Middle East.  In most developing countries.  The notion that we use torture is well-known to many…except our own citizens who live in their cruise-controlled, air-conditioned lives, insulated from the truth by fake 24-hour news, iPods, and debt.

Empire is a word I use a lot on here and I don’t want it to lose its potency.  So consider the following facts:

  • The DoD manages over 32.4 million acres of land worldwide.  And while over 98% is on American soil, that leaves almost 650,000 acres in foreign countries.
  • The DoD occupies 343,867 buildings worth $464 billion dollars.  Just shy of 57,000 of them are on foreign soil.
  • We have troop placements of almost 370,000 in over 150 countries.

Thanks to Wikipedia and The Center for Defense Information.

At some point you have to ask yourself when enough is enough.

-mike