Gulag America
Excerpt from Perverts in Power: The Torture-Lovers Who Rule Us
"But why do these tortures go on? (As noted in that previous post, Obama has in no way "ended torture" by American officials; even the official guidelines he has openly approved allow techniques that are torture in every sense of the word.) What is the point of these atrocities? In the vast majority of cases, "terrorist suspects" are the smallest of small fry, even in the eyes of their captors; they are tortured merely to extract some crumb of information from them, some tidbit that might somehow fit into the "mosaic" -- the conceptual tool used by our intelligence services to weave gigantic, world-threatening conspiracies which can only be thwarted by ever more vast expenditures and arbitrary power for our intelligence services. As is well known, this interrogation strategy produces mountains of useless crap, which our intelligence "experts" then mold into whatever shape our politicians (and their paymasters) require. It is worse than useless; it is demonstrably counterproductive. It does not enhance "national security." It doesn't even do anything in particular to advance the agendas of our corporate and political overlords, because it throws up too much dust and chaos to be of practical use in plotting their future moves.
So why does it happen? Why are innocent pregnant women wrapped in tape, why are children abducted, why are innocent people strung up in "stress positions," why are captives beaten, bombarded with brain-scrambling noise, stripped naked and sexually humiliated, drugged, deprived of sleep, threatened with murder -- and sometimes murdered in fact? Why is this being done by official representatives of the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom?
Why? Because -- and let us be absolutely clear about this -- because these people want to torture others. They like it, they enjoy it. There is clearly a zest, a psychosexual rush at work. Like child abusers, they enjoy their full, unchallengeable physical power over the bodies of their defenseless victims. They get off on it. They are the moral equivalent of pedophiles, and in any remotely healthy society, they would be treated as such.
And of course we are not talking solely of those doing the hands-on torture. Their bosses are of exactly the same ilk. I refer here to our great and good, our high and mighty, the minsters of state, the cabinet members, the military chieftains, the lords and legislators, the prime ministers, the presidents. All of them are eager participants in this extreme perversity. They love the fact that they can order human beings to be tortured -- to be beaten, trussed up, stripped and probed, drugged, driven crazy. They love how tough it makes them feel. They love how powerful it makes them feel. There should be no mistake about this. Torture is being carried out because our leaders want it to be, because they like it. There are no reluctant torturers -- neither at highest levels nor among the factotums actually doing the deed.
There are no reluctant torturers. This point is important to remember."
"But why do these tortures go on? (As noted in that previous post, Obama has in no way "ended torture" by American officials; even the official guidelines he has openly approved allow techniques that are torture in every sense of the word.) What is the point of these atrocities? In the vast majority of cases, "terrorist suspects" are the smallest of small fry, even in the eyes of their captors; they are tortured merely to extract some crumb of information from them, some tidbit that might somehow fit into the "mosaic" -- the conceptual tool used by our intelligence services to weave gigantic, world-threatening conspiracies which can only be thwarted by ever more vast expenditures and arbitrary power for our intelligence services. As is well known, this interrogation strategy produces mountains of useless crap, which our intelligence "experts" then mold into whatever shape our politicians (and their paymasters) require. It is worse than useless; it is demonstrably counterproductive. It does not enhance "national security." It doesn't even do anything in particular to advance the agendas of our corporate and political overlords, because it throws up too much dust and chaos to be of practical use in plotting their future moves.
So why does it happen? Why are innocent pregnant women wrapped in tape, why are children abducted, why are innocent people strung up in "stress positions," why are captives beaten, bombarded with brain-scrambling noise, stripped naked and sexually humiliated, drugged, deprived of sleep, threatened with murder -- and sometimes murdered in fact? Why is this being done by official representatives of the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom?
Why? Because -- and let us be absolutely clear about this -- because these people want to torture others. They like it, they enjoy it. There is clearly a zest, a psychosexual rush at work. Like child abusers, they enjoy their full, unchallengeable physical power over the bodies of their defenseless victims. They get off on it. They are the moral equivalent of pedophiles, and in any remotely healthy society, they would be treated as such.
And of course we are not talking solely of those doing the hands-on torture. Their bosses are of exactly the same ilk. I refer here to our great and good, our high and mighty, the minsters of state, the cabinet members, the military chieftains, the lords and legislators, the prime ministers, the presidents. All of them are eager participants in this extreme perversity. They love the fact that they can order human beings to be tortured -- to be beaten, trussed up, stripped and probed, drugged, driven crazy. They love how tough it makes them feel. They love how powerful it makes them feel. There should be no mistake about this. Torture is being carried out because our leaders want it to be, because they like it. There are no reluctant torturers -- neither at highest levels nor among the factotums actually doing the deed.
There are no reluctant torturers. This point is important to remember."
posted by nolocontendere at 8:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home