Monday, June 25, 2007

I am still proud to be an American...

... but our current administration makes it difficult. You have to read the Washington's post series on Dick Cheney, who they refer to as the most influential vice president in history. It provides an in depth look at how the administration, with Dick Cheney directing, has changed our government into one that tortures people and does not provide them with the basic rights that we are taught from the earliest age apply to all people.

"That same day, Aug. 1, 2002, Yoo signed off on a second secret opinion, the contents of which have never been made public. According to a source with direct knowledge, that opinion approved as lawful a long list of interrogation techniques proposed by the CIA -- including waterboarding, a form of near-drowning that the U.S. government has prosecuted as a war crime since at least 1901. The opinion drew the line against one request: threatening to bury a prisoner alive."

Emphasis added. This is what an Australian citizen claims happened to him at Guatanamo:

"Interrogators questioned him under guidelines that gave legal cover to the infliction of pain and fear -- and, according to an affidavit filed by British lawyer Steven Grosz, Hicks was subjected to beatings, sodomy with a foreign object, sensory deprivation, disorienting drugs and prolonged shackling in painful positions."

When is sodomy with a foreign object ever justified? And what kind of a monster do you have to be to be willing to do that to someone?

How can you support a government that does this to anyone?

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