I Cogitate
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Bush et al -- stand up or stand down
Besides being pathological liars, the people running the current administration are simply perverted cowards, misfits of the worst magnitude. Stand up George Bush. Stand up Dick Cheney. Stand up but don't come back Donald Rumsfeld. Stand up Alberto Gonzales. Stand up Condoleeza Rice. Stand up David Addington. Stand up you spineless congressional GOPers. Quit hiding by wrapping yourself in flag and position when provided the opportunity to voice your true values and beliefs.
The context here of my definition of perverted cowards is that these are the ilk who cajole, leverage or order others to do soul-stealing dirtywork, including atrocities against fellow human beings--but they will NEVER stand up and perform such deeds themselves, nor will they EVER stand up and admit or acknowledge that these abuses against fellow human beings are something they not just wanted but lust after. These are con men who choose to cower in the darkness when provided opportunity after opportunity to stand up and proudly twine their sordid and barbaric requests of others with voicing 'yes, this is what I believe...'
Their chances to lead--undertaking action themselves--executions of their personal beliefs--are always left to others. Yes, this bunch of pansies have always declined and demurred opportunities to be out front and upfront, that 's the courage-lessness of these invertebrate scum. Plausible deniability, securing a paper-less trail, protecting their own asses--that's what they stand for when the going just possibly might get a bit tough.
It's always get someone else to use the torture pliars, to attach the electrodes, to attempt a faux drowning. These bastards won't deign to get their own hands bloody, to smell the burnt flesh or to hear the screams. No, not them. It's 'we order, you comply' while turning their backs and silently mouthing 'you are on your own if push comes to shove.'
Of course, this group would all be completely worthless in a real battlefield foxhole--just blithering idiots staining their pants. Props and specially chosen backdrops don't cut it then, empty words without deeds are readily seen as transparent in the pitch and horror of real battle.
But this group wouldn't know it. It's always others who pay the price, both the torturer and but especially the tortured. This modus operandi will never change for these are weasel-wording, spineless punks and always will be. National leaders--hah! More like mutated miscreants dragging everyone in their orbit further and further down each and every day.
Here's an interesting outcome of all this:
An Iraq Interrogator's NightmareGo here to read the rest.
By Eric Fair
The Washington Post
February 9, 2007; A19
A man with no face stares at me from the corner of a room. He pleads for help, but I'm afraid to move. He begins to cry. It is a pitiful sound, and it sickens me. He screams, but as I awaken, I realize the screams are mine.
That dream, along with a host of other nightmares, has plagued me since my return from Iraq in the summer of 2004. Though the man in this particular nightmare has no face, I know who he is. I assisted in his interrogation at a detention facility in Fallujah. I was one of two civilian interrogators assigned to the division interrogation facility (DIF) of the 82nd Airborne Division. The man, whose name I've long since forgotten, was a suspected associate of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, the Baath Party leader in Anbar province who had been captured two months earlier.
The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.
Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.
American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.
While I was appalled by the conduct of my friends and colleagues, I lacked the courage to challenge the status quo. That was a failure of character and in many ways made me complicit in what went on. I'm ashamed of that failure, but as time passes, and as the memories of what I saw in Iraq continue to infect my every thought, I'm becoming more ashamed of my silence...
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