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The issue of the day(s) is ofcourse the civil war brewing in Iraq at the combined instigation of the Islamofascist Sadr and SCIRI and with the excuse of the recent Shi'a holy site bombing, all coincidentally as the secular Sunni and Kurdish parties were moving jointly to decrease the power of the philo-Iranian Islamofascist parties...
... but I must discuss another issue first.
We get enough anti-American propaganda in Greece that I rarely find the need to add to it. Even when the arguments are perfectly good and the facts perfectly accurate, it still happens that the selective reporting thereof ends up tilting the balance of public opinion askew -- the things we'd need to hear in Greece far more are the ones we rarely do: the stories of Eastern and Balkan fascisms...
But this time I've been recently challenged in my description of the current US administration as a bunch of moral cretins (and murderers and torturers besides), so I've spent a little bit of time collecting a brief list of links, supporting this characterization. It made my job a little harder that I tend to absorb information but not really collect links. It made my job a little easier that the issue was again current in the blogosphere and the news just a few days ago.
( Here you go, George )
Are these enough? I could probably dig up some more. In truth the Bush administration's fierce reaction against the McCain amendment would have *alone* been enough to convince me of their guilt and responsibility where torture is concerned.
But on the whole I think the above collection of links quite suffices to justify my characterization of the US administration as a bunch of torturers and murderers and all-around moral cretins. Abu Ghraib was not incidental -- it was official policy, first established in Guantanamo and authorized at the highest levels. Humiliation, abuse, savagery -- all check. The only thing exceptional about Abu Ghraib was the extensive photographic archive that *showed* to the world the moral degradation taking place.
The "defense of cleverness" that my brother used (aka "they couldn't have been so stupid as to authorize this") becomes irrelevant when it is shown that, yes, they could. Yes, they did. I'm not really interested in psychoanalyzing their reasons for being so "stupid". Truly nothing could surprise me concerning how far the current administration's stupidity can take them.
(I have my theories about such stupidity, ofcourse, as I have my theories about everything. One such theory is that machismo, which seems to be the current American conservativism's defining theme (certainly more so that financial attitudes or religious beliefs are) is after all almost by definition the glorification of mindless bullying. Other theories of mine range from the classical hubris, to plain racism, to plain psychopathy, but they are all just guesswork and largely irrelevant in determining the facts. )
... but I must discuss another issue first.
We get enough anti-American propaganda in Greece that I rarely find the need to add to it. Even when the arguments are perfectly good and the facts perfectly accurate, it still happens that the selective reporting thereof ends up tilting the balance of public opinion askew -- the things we'd need to hear in Greece far more are the ones we rarely do: the stories of Eastern and Balkan fascisms...
But this time I've been recently challenged in my description of the current US administration as a bunch of moral cretins (and murderers and torturers besides), so I've spent a little bit of time collecting a brief list of links, supporting this characterization. It made my job a little harder that I tend to absorb information but not really collect links. It made my job a little easier that the issue was again current in the blogosphere and the news just a few days ago.
( Here you go, George )
Are these enough? I could probably dig up some more. In truth the Bush administration's fierce reaction against the McCain amendment would have *alone* been enough to convince me of their guilt and responsibility where torture is concerned.
But on the whole I think the above collection of links quite suffices to justify my characterization of the US administration as a bunch of torturers and murderers and all-around moral cretins. Abu Ghraib was not incidental -- it was official policy, first established in Guantanamo and authorized at the highest levels. Humiliation, abuse, savagery -- all check. The only thing exceptional about Abu Ghraib was the extensive photographic archive that *showed* to the world the moral degradation taking place.
The "defense of cleverness" that my brother used (aka "they couldn't have been so stupid as to authorize this") becomes irrelevant when it is shown that, yes, they could. Yes, they did. I'm not really interested in psychoanalyzing their reasons for being so "stupid". Truly nothing could surprise me concerning how far the current administration's stupidity can take them.
(I have my theories about such stupidity, ofcourse, as I have my theories about everything. One such theory is that machismo, which seems to be the current American conservativism's defining theme (certainly more so that financial attitudes or religious beliefs are) is after all almost by definition the glorification of mindless bullying. Other theories of mine range from the classical hubris, to plain racism, to plain psychopathy, but they are all just guesswork and largely irrelevant in determining the facts. )
