Oh, Blogger Formerly Known as Hindrocket, why can’t I quit you? You say the wingnuttiest stuff imaginable — it’s so precious! And you’re able to get worked up so easily — it’s adorable!<\/p>\n
Take today, for example. You got really, really upset when you were in an airport and were evidently forced at gunpoint to watch CNN<\/a>:<\/p>\n That’s where I spent an hour or more at a gate this afternoon, listening unwillingly to CNN’s coverage of the “torture” issue. That’s pretty much all they talked about; they were nearly rubbing their hands together with glee. The premise of CNN’s coverage was that those nasty Bush officials surely ought to be prosecuted and imprisoned for waterboarding poor Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; the only question is whether they will somehow wriggle out of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yeah! Stupid CNN, thinking that it was bad of the Bush Administration to commit war crimes. After all, KSM is a bad guy! And we got such great information from it — why, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to pretty much everything imaginable<\/a>! Okay, some of it was probably stuff he didn’t actually do<\/a>, but that’s the purpose of torture: to get people to confess to things they didn’t do, so there, morans!<\/p>\n Not that we torture, of course. Except, of course, for Barack Obama, who is torturing U.S. troops zOMG11!!!!!!onethousandonehundredeleven!!<\/em><\/p>\n As I listened to an hour of almost non-stop wailing about waterboarding, I couldn’t help wondering how many people have been waterboarded by U.S. authorities during the first three months of the Obama administration. Some hundreds, I would think–surely far more than the three terrorists over whom such tears are now being shed. Those “victims” don’t count, apparently, inasmuch as they are only U.S. military personnel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yes, folks, Barack HUSSEIN Obama is torturing our troops, probably personally. It’s all part of his secret plot to sell us to the Swedes who will come in and make us all drive Volvos and eat lutefisk and shop at IKEA and then they’ll surrender to the Muslims! Will nobody stop this monster? Why won’t someone think of the troops?<\/p>\n And, hey, they volunteered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Well, that’s no reason to — wait, what?<\/p>\n But if waterboarding is “torture,” then it’s illegal. So why is the U.S. military still using it as a training device, last we knew? If we’re going to start prosecuting people, don’t we have to prosecute the many civilian and military leaders who have for decades inflicted waterboarding, or condoned the use of waterboarding, on our servicemen?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Uh…huh.<\/p>\n Let me draw an analogy. If I walk up to some unsuspecting person and poke a hole in their ear with a sharp object, that would be illegal. I’d be guilty of assault (at the very least). I’d go to jail. If, however, a person comes to my jewelry shop and asks me to pierce their ears, and I do so, I am not, in fact, guilty of a crime.<\/p>\n Or if I lie down on a bed, and suddenly someone knocks me out and cuts me open and starts pulling parts of me out, they’re obviously a very sick criminal. Unless I’m in a hospital and they’re removing my gall bladder — then they’re trained medical professionals doing their job.<\/p>\n Or if I meet a girl at a bar, and shove her into my car and force myself on her, then I’m a rapist and I’m going away to prison. But if I invite her to my house and she says yes, and we have a night of consenual sex, then nobody’s guilty of a damn thing, other than getting some good lovin’.<\/p>\n You see, John, the fact that soldiers volunteer for SERE is not beside the point — it is the point<\/em>. There are all sorts of activities that are perfectly legal when people consent to them them, and completely illegal when they don’t.<\/p>\n Waterboarding? That’s in that category. When our soldiers experience waterboarding in order to learn how to deal with it should they be captured — that’s a learning experience, one that is useful, if frightening. (Indeed, very useful — no doubt, U.S. soldiers are today more at risk of torture than they were in 2001. Thanks, Dubya.)<\/p>\n But if we waterboard a prisoner, one we have in custody — if we inflict pain and trauma on a person against that person’s will — that is a war crime. That is illegal<\/em>, and deeply immoral. If the U.S. government is still engaged in waterboarding prisoners, then Barack Obama will be no less guilty than George W. Bush — and I would support his impeachment if that turned out to be so.<\/p>\n But if the Obama administration is guilty of teaching soldiers how to deal with torture, then that just proves they understand the world America lives in. Unlike you, John Hinderaker. Unlike you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oh, Blogger Formerly Known as Hindrocket, why can’t I quit you? You say the wingnuttiest stuff imaginable — it’s so precious! And you’re able to get worked up so easily — it’s adorable! Take today, for example. You got really, … Continue reading