So, I've been meaning to sit down and write about how much this was bugging me for the last week. The other day, while sitting in traffic on the 405, I was telling my Mom over the phone about some of the stories I'd been reading regarding ABC's investigation on torture. More importantly: who approved it. It didn't help my nerves to find out that my Mom hadn't heard anything about it - I'm sure many people haven't either.

Since the details of the 5 month long investigation were reported (on April 9th), it's basically been a non-issue in the main stream media. Shocking.



I wish I were more surprised that a) this administration, at the highest levels (Cheney, Rice, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Ashcroft), personally oversaw and gave the go-ahead on torture... let that word sink in a bit, our tax dollars and "representatives" hard at work: torture... torture.

Or that b) this information is reported and no one bats a fucking eye. Eh, who cares, it's only torture. We all like the show 24, right? Real life is just like, isn't it? No big deal. I'm sure people won't look at me 20 years from now and wonder if I was one of the blood-lusting, chest-thumping idiots who thought this kind of behavior was fine and/or "keeping us safe".



I love thinking back to the leaked pictures of the prison camps and the wave of talking points that followed, relieving us of any worry or responsibility by assuring us it was "only a few bad apple". While at the same time, people *in the white house* were sitting in their comfy office chairs, looking at pictures of strangers deemed "enemy combatants", deciding who would be tortured by simulated drowning, who would be tortured via hanging them up by their arms for 6 hours at a time, who would be tortured by sleep deprivation and freezing temperatures, who would be held under water while 2 or 3 men punched the hell of the person's stomach.


It's important to remember that this policy of torture has killed, what is it now, 35 people, if I remember correctly. Maybe a few more, maybe a few less, but the number is really irrelevant - the policy in and of itself is damning enough. Our government has tortured... our government has killed people who were never given a trial.


I can't help but picture the man I watched in a 60 Minute's piece two weeks ago, he was 22 when he was randomly picked off a bus at a routine road stop. He was then paid a bounty for by the government, $3,000 per head... not a bad way for a person to make some cash on the side in a war torn region of the world, eh?

So he was then put into a prison camp, no one was ever told about his detention, no lawyers were notified, no family members knew where he was. He was around my brother's age. And our government beat him daily, put him in freezing cells, and blasted music for days straight, they held him under water while they punched his body, they hung him by metal chains in an airplane hanger for days, every so often letting a doctor come take a look at his eyes and heart to determine if he could withstand it any longer.

Turns out this man, by both the US and European government was excused, they admitted they had made a mistake. By then it had been years... the camp was instructed to release him in a few weeks. Three... more... years went by. Three years. Of beatings... of torture... he lost five years of his life. I can't help but think of my family going through this, the man was from Germany... what if this was someone I knew, what if this was my brother. What if he was snatched up... and beaten for years... would I recognize him when he was finally released? Would he be the same? Would I ever really get my brother back?

It makes me sick to think of this - to *know* now, to without a doubt *know* that our government tortures. It's no longer a sneaking suspicion... or a "few bad apples"... we have fucking transcripts from the meetings. I don't even know what to say... it just makes me ashamed. Anyone who doesn't feel like vomiting when thinking about this... needs their fucking head checked.