auschwitz, bergen belsen, solovetsk special camp, gitmo...?
Governor and aspiring presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA):
To suggest, for instance, that the kinds of things that we're associated with as torture, is crazy. You hear that all the time. Oh, the Americans are torturing. Well, that's absurd. Torturing is breaking bones and pulling out people's fingernails and the like. And to compare anything we do with Nazi Germany is offensive, and Dick Durbin ought to apologize to the American people, and to the American servicemen and women who are protecting our liberties in places like Gitmo and others.
The Oxford American Dictionary defines torture as: great physical or mental suffering or anxiety. Being chained to the floor and having to listen to loud rock music sounds like mental suffering or anxiety. Oh, and being chained to the floor they have to defecate on themselves not being allowed to use the commode.
Chris Wallace from Fox News Sunday believes that I mean, what was so horrific in the memo, and I'm not saying, you know, there aren't legitimate questions there, is that someone is chained to a floor and forced to defecate on themselves, and has loud rock music playing. Excuse me? I mean, you know, Auschwitz? Bergen Belsen? The Soviet gulag? I think they would have been very happy to be allowed to defecate on themselves.
These are from interviews with Romney and Wallace from the Hugh Hewitt radio show out of Orange County. They are using the administration's usual strategy of justifying action and thought and trying to prevent legitimate dialogue by attacking anyone who questions or suggests that there maybe some other way to view things. We've seen this time after time. You can read the full transcripts here radioblogger.com.
Question #1: Wouldn't suffering of any kind to coerce another person prove to be torture?
Question #2: Wouldn't treating a person as less than a human being indicate torture?
Question #3: Shouldn't learning from the past help avoid torture?
just asking...
To hear Senator Durbin's side of what may be another contrived controversy, listen to his interview from the Spike O'Dell Show on WGN Radio, June 17, 2005, via the Chicago Tribune. [Note: free registration may be required.]
1 comment:
One thing I should have mentioned is that the Chicago Tribune has always been identified as a conservative Republican leaning newspaper. They also own WGN radio and television.
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