Taking Down Torture Bullshit Point-By-Point

There is an awful lot of noise coming from pro-torture assholes on cable TV and on the internet. These people are trying their hardest to shift attention away from the abuses committed and onto the traitors like me who talk about them.

The newest line of shit is a call for Senator Dick Durbin to resign. First off, the only person who should be upset about Durbin is fellow Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Durbin is the Senate Minority Whip, and Barack, as a Senate Minority, can't be too comfortable sitting next to a guy with a fucked up job title like that.

But I digress. All criticism of Durbin is coming from the right. Right wing torture groupies think Durbin went too far with his condemnation of American torture techniques. Durbin read this (fucked up) FBI memo on the Senate floor:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."

After which he made this statement:

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulag, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings.

Many douchebags are quoting him all out of context with ellipses all over the fucking place like this:

Durbin sez: "Americans .. [are] most certainly... Nazis. [I]n their Gulag.. [The Troops©] had no concern for human beings."

What the fuck ever. It should be noted that most of these assholes have absolutely no objection to torture, and make no effort to dispute the abuse charges. In fact Rush Limbaugh is now selling a t-shirt celebrating torture and apparently urging a coverup of any future crimes: "A MUST Have. Club G'itmo logo on front. "What Happens in G'itmo stays in G'itmo emblazoned on back." Available in Institutional Orange only in sizes: S, M, L, XL, XXL, and now in XXXL & XXXXL!" Extra Extra Extra Extra Large? At that size Rush should be paying you; you're a Goodyear blimp-sized billboard pimping RushLimbaugh.com. Republicans are outraged at the Senator for even talking about those charges. They have their panties all in a bunch about comparisons to Gulags. Many conservatives have resorted to rattling off the menu selection at Gitmo as a defense:

Rep. Duncan Hunter, the House Armed Services Committee chairman, "For Sunday they're going to be having Orange Glazed Chicken, Fresh Fruit Roupee, Steamed Peas and Mushrooms, Rice Pilaf - we treat them very well," he told Fox News Sunday.

A few points. If you are like me (and unlike many political pundits) you went to a public school, so you know what prison food tastes like. I'm willing to guess the "Orange Glaze" is made up of: High Fructose Corn Syrup, Preservatives, Yellow #6, and "artificial flavors," and probably tastes like a mule's ass. But even if Gitmo's "Orange Glazed Chicken" tastes better than Angelina Jolie's birth canal, it probably doesn't seem so delicious when shitting it all over oneself in a small steamy room.

What I'm trying to get at is that Durbin didn't do anything wrong here. He basically stated that this kind of behavior sounds rather unlike the troops we've all come to know and love. Chaining unarmed defenseless people down in a 110 degree room in a pool of feces and urine while blasting "2pacalypse now" at high volume does not sound much like being "all that you can be".

Then there's speculation in the press that the solution to all of these problems would be to close down and/or demolish the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Every god damn article I see is basically the press salivating over every word from the Bush Administration. "Bush May or May Not Shut Down Gitmo", "Bush Doesn't Rule Out or Rule In Torture Camp Closing", "Bush Doesn't Say He Isn't Going to Un-Shutdown Negative Zone Gitmo". Hate to bring reality down to y'all, but closing these places isn't going to do dick. Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib weren't possessed by poltergeists; they weren't built on top of a pet cemetery. There was nothing special about the floor at Abu Ghraib that facilitated the building a naked man pyramid. It's not like there was a Twister© game board painted there or anything. Right Nut Red, Left Ass Cheek Green.

All of these crimes were committed by servicemen, under the orders, and with the blessing of the Bush Administration and Army Superiors. Closing down the camps is a symbolic move that doesn't change a fucking thing, and has nothing to do with determining who's really accountable for this "Troops Gone Wild: Spring Break Edition" behavior.