WE DO NOT TORTURE - WE LEAVE THAT TO EXPERTS

Another stellar example of double-speak (or is it 'zero-speak'; I have a hard time telling the difference nowadays):



AP and MSNBC report:
"President Bush on Monday ---(cut)---defended U.S. interrogation of suspected terrorists after the public disclosure of secret CIA prisoner camps in eastern European countries. "We do not torture," he declared."

----Despite massive evidence to the contrary.


""There’s an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again," Bush said. "So you bet we will aggressively pursue them but we will do so under the law.""

----Such as extraordinary rendition to ex-Stalinist interrogators in the hell of Eastern Europe, and our good friends the Pakistanis and Egyptians.

By the way, is it me or does he sound a bit paranoid here?


Against White House opposition, the Senate has passed legislation banning torture.

----The fact that such legislation was necessary, despite our being signatory to conventions barring torture, speaks volumes.


The White House is seeking an exemption for the CIA.

----More volumes.


It was recently disclosed that the CIA maintains a network of prisons in eastern Europe and Asia, where it holds terrorist suspects.

----That's called a Gulag archipelago. Something we used to despise. Used to.


"Our country is at war and our government has the obligation to protect the American people," Bush said. "Any activity we conduct is within the law. We do not torture."

----We've covered our tuchus, and have ensured enough plausible deniability and double-bottoms to keep the obfuscation going for years, and in any case, whatever we do is right, how dare anyone suggest otherwise. Especially our allies.


Bush pointedly noted that Congress as well as the White House has an obligation to protect U.S. citizens.

----This is the same poisonous reasoning used by Southern Sheriffs caught beating the crap out those uppity you-know-whats, "cause otherwise da white wimmens ain't gonna be safe!" ["And why can't all of you Yankee liberals understand that?!?!"]


Then the article, in passing, mentioned the hundreds of foreign suspects held at the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Perhaps you recall that the reason we are holding them at Gitmo is so that constitutional protections and the human-rights conventions to which the US is party are circumvented, and so that there won't be any excessive oversight and criticism from civil-rights organizations and political activists.

If Bush was a European, we might be lambasting him for all of this, and if one of the world-leaders we disapprove of said it, we would demand his ouster.

But he's one of ours, and not very bright besides, so we forgive him.

[Entire article visible at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9956644/]

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It's not really germane, but I'm utterly disgusted. Repulsed.
This is the most repellent administration we've had in over thirty years.