Torture: ineffective, and immoral, and used for partisan political gain

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Apr 27, 2009 at 10:49:30 AM MST

Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to "protect" us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from "another 9/11," torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House's illegality.

Is it me, or does this fit a pattern with revelations about the Bush administration and Iraq? Some information leaked out, a few journalists and bloggers followed the trail, shocking revelations came to light...which the media ignored for two to four years until an authorized government report admits to what we knew all along.

Does it bother anyone else that most mainstream media outlets are passive when it comes to challenging the government?

This stuff that's coming out about the Bush administration is huge. The implications about the executive branch are enormous. But...will anything happen? Where's the pressure to right the wrongs that have been committed?