It’s not torture unless your first objective IS to hurt, maim or kill them

CNN–Previously secret torture memo released
“WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Bush administration told the CIA in 2002 that its interrogators working abroad would not violate U.S. prohibitions against torture unless they ‘have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering,’ according to a previously secret Justice Department memo released Thursday.

“The interrogator’s ‘good faith’ and ‘honest belief’ that the interrogation will not cause such suffering protects the interrogator, the memo adds.

“‘Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture,’ Jay Bybee, then the assistant attorney general, wrote in the memo.”

Oh yeah, and Tinkerbell will be saved if everyone says, I DO believe in fairies. Basically, what the memo is saying is that intent is more important than what you actually do. Like if you shoot someone, but don’t intend to kill them, it’s not murder if they die. After all, you didn’t think they would die, did you? So, if your superior tells you, don’t worry, it isn’t really gonna hurt them, you’re fine. Or if you’re a Pollyanna or think that these people you’re torturing are just characters in a Warner Brothers cartoon.

Coleen Rowley and Ray McGovern have a good discussion on the lies the administration told us and itself to justify its use of torture in ConsortiumNews: <A href=”http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/071808e.html”>’Justifying’ Torture: Two Big Lies.</A> They make the interesting point that torture does NOT get us any real information, but it CAN be used to get “confirmation” of misinformation we want to spread. Say WMDs. Ordinary questioning reveals that the WMDs had been destroyed in the 1990s. Torture gets the prisoner to “admit” knowing about secret caches of them and continuing programs. Now you have “plausible evidence” to accuse Iraq of a WMD program. Is it true? WTF cares, the tanks have to roll by March…

Stand up and sing the National Anthem, Mr. Ashcroft.

Hooray for OUR Team

Ever get the feeling that SOME people in Congress don’t really have a clue they might be running a country? It’s more like they think,”Aaaahhh, politics is a team sport!” and proceed to vote as if getting the team to win is the most important part of their duty. I could say something nasty like, “Don’t they think the rest of the world knows that waterboarding isn’t some new EXTREME Watersport?” or wonder if they think it’s some new kind of golden shower. But this is a family cartoon and so I won’t 🙂

You wonder what’s in their minds. “But waterboarding is torture,” you say. “It WOULD be,” they counter, “if we were using it on enemy soldiers–but these people are not soldiers, they’re combatants.” You might counter, “that’s just semantics,” but rest assured, they have more semantics up their sleeves 🙂 “Torture is justified by the ticking bomb scenario. If there’s a ticking bomb and the only person who knows how to defuse it refuses to talk, you’re justified in torturing him.” “But there WAS no ticking bomb in Iraq.” “Well, how would we know that if we didn’t waterboard someone to find out?”

I ask you, doesn’t that make sense?

And Are We Being Censored AGAIN Over Here? Mmmmmmm Could Be…

(The Nation) Waterboarding’s Comeback

(David Corn) This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like

(WashPost) Waterboarding Historically Controversial: In 1947, the U.S. Called It a War Crime; in 1968, It Reportedly Caused an Investigation

This is for all you who don’t know what kind of techniques The Party doesn’t consider torture. I understand that in order to justify it’s not being called torture, we’ve petitioned the Olympic Committee to have it instated as a sport 🙂

In the meantime, my hits took another dive on Saturday and after the problems with Google in the spring, I checked Image Search http://images.google.com for “hail dubyus” to see how many of my cartoons were there and found…ONLY 42! After being up to 386 earlier in the week. Funny, I thought, that was the number of images that showed up when I searched http://images.google.cn (Ahem the censored image search suitable for the People’s Republic of China). So I searched there for “hail dubyus” and whaddya know–386 images available. Someone switcherooed my image availability between China and THE REST OF THE WORLD. Funny thing, I checked a number of other sites to see if it happened to them–like Playboy, since the Chinese are as much against flesh as they are against politics–but it only seemed to affect MY site. This isn’t saying it HASN’T been done to anyone else, but it looks MIGHTY FISHY from where we stand, especially with our history. We have written various people and if ANYONE out there knows ANYONE with clout at Google, please give us an email. It COULD be a simple error that can easily be fixed…Then again, there’s a good possibility someone at google or hacking google thinks we’re the Most Dangerous Cartoon on the Internet…