Murder By Cop In A Nation of Normalized Torture

Like military, like police, and I don't mean equipment.

Digby on the crybaby torturers:

This is why these people should have been fired:

“There is a feeling in the hallways that Brennan is not pursuing their best interest,” said a former intelligence official who talks to friends at headquarters. “That, in fact, he’s pursuing the White House’s best interest. And they’re getting thrown under the bus. It goes back to the one basic thing: Whether they did right or they did wrong, they were told to do something, they did it, and they feel like they had the rug pulled out from underneath them. They feel sold down the river, and Brennan is part of the sale process.”

Oh boo hoo hoo. What a bunch of sniveling cowards. They are not robots. If they had balked at doing it, they would not have been fired. After all, it was torture. Would the administration have risked them going public with that mess? No. They could have found other ways. They wanted to do it and so they did. And clearly, they're not sorry. Why should they be? There are no repercussions. If you like torturing people, which they apparently do, then it's all good.

And once more, let's all be aware of the fact that torture has been "normalized" by this episode. It's now a matter for "debate" as to whether we should do it and you can bet that we will do it if they feel the need:

Those disgruntled analysts and spies will find more vocal defenders in a group of former officials who’ve read the findings, and who pledged not to discuss them until they were made public. These officials have penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, which will be published soon after the report is publicly released. In it, according to a source familiar with the contents, the formers will lay out their fierce rebuttal of the committee’s findings—nearly all of which have already been leaked—and blast what they see as a biased, five-year process that culminated in a flawed history of the rendition, detention, and interrogation efforts.

Right. After all we won the War on Terror, pacified Iraq and ushered in a new era of peace and tranquility in the Middle East. It's been a big success. Why would we change a thing?

This is just sickening. The Republican Party is overtly pro-torture and they're proud of it. Democrats can barely raise their voices against it.

And people wonder why cops on the streets of American think they can chokehold people to death on the sidewalk? Why? This is who we are.

Kevin Gosztola at Firedoglake:

There currently is no law in the United States, which specifically criminalizes law enforcement who engage in torture. The United Nations Committee Against Torture has protested the fact that there is no law in the United States, however, three times now the US government has maintained that such a law is not required because there is a patchwork of other statutes that could be used against law enforcement or any other officials who committed torture.

A US delegation appeared before the UN Committee in November and faced questions, once again, about the fact that Chicago Police Department torture survivors have been denied justice.