{"id":15800,"date":"2014-12-10T09:16:19","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T16:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=15800"},"modified":"2014-12-10T09:16:19","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T16:16:19","slug":"the-torture-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=15800","title":{"rendered":"The Torture Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regarding the release of the US Senate’s torture report, it’s tempting to lead off with a inset photo of Dick Cheney, who was once aptly described as the kind of man who, even before climbing into the lifeboat, is already talking about which of his fellow survivors should be eaten first. He was, after all, one of the first administration officials to recommend torturing captives in the wake of 9\/11 … even before we had<\/em> any captives … and has remained torture’s most ardent champion.<\/p>\n

But Cheney is one fascist authoritarian among many. It’s not just Cheney, it’s Cheney and his ilk. A hell of a lot of Americans belong to that ilk. Sadly, they’re Americans who look like me. Americans who look like me torture. Americans who look like me want to round up 11 million undocumented immigrants and load them onto boxcars. Americans who look like me dream of a race war that will rid this country of the descendants of slaves Americans like me once brutalized. Americans who look like me waged a campaign of genocide against the native inhabitants of North America, and to this day continue breaking\u00a0treaties we made with the survivors. Explain to me again just how America is exceptional?<\/p>\n

The torture wing of America’s elite class warns the release of this report will result in the death of Americans. That may well happen, but it’s not the reason they tried so hard to keep the report secret. No, they tried to keep it secret to spare themselves embarrassment and avoid accountability. Whenever you hear elites howl that admitting the truth will damage national security and put American lives at risk, you’re hearing elites trying to protect themselves.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what they’re worried about, though. No one of any importance will be held accountable for torture. Public embarrassment is the worst that could happen to someone like Cheney, and I doubt Cheney’s ever been embarrassed in his life. He’ll go to his grave a righteous and proud torturer.<\/p>\n

Knowing no one important will ever be punished for the crimes spelled out in the Senate’s torture report, Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, suggests President Obama pardon Bush and Cheney<\/a>, just as President Gerald Ford once pardoned Nixon. Why? Because a pardon would officially acknowledge, for the first time, their guilt.\u00a0Would Obama risk such a bold step, even in the last two years of his presidency when he has nothing to lose by it? Only one word comes to mind, and that word is “nah.”<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I’m glad the truth is coming out. Some Americans, who also look like me,\u00a0are paying attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Americans who look like me torture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,250,10,2,22,9],"tags":[1743,1744,1742],"class_list":["post-15800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-brother","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-personal","category-terrorism","category-war","tag-accountability","tag-cheney","tag-senate-torture-report"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15800"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15805,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800\/revisions\/15805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}