What sort of warped mind would think of stripping someone and putting them in a coffin like box

[Bandit]

and putting insects in the box with that person? Would that be acceptable activity in Pat Robertson's or James Dodson's Church? Is that the way Americans think? And then to have the gall to say it's not torture... I don't get it..Are we just being Partisan? Do Republicans actually believe that is an acceptable act for our people to do. Is this what we want to teach our children...Does most of America really feel like Senator Inhofe and are "Outraged at the Outrage" over this so-called torture? Are we that are truly sickened by this, just far left radicals on the fringe of society. That thought makes me even sicker than the thought our people actually tortured people.

[williesgirl]

1. Couldn't agree w/you more. It takes a very sick, cruel mind to come up with this shit. He/them

must be tried in open court where the world will know who they are and watch them go to jail. rec'd

[global1]

2. I Don't Recall All The Details - But In Orwell's 1984 Didn't They Use A Technique.....

like taking the person's worst fear and exposing the person to it? I seem to recall 'rats'. Was it Orwell's 1984 or was it another novel? I can't recall all the details - but this seemed to have stuck in my mind. I don't remember if the technique used was torture or for brainwashing.

[global1]

7. I Just Found This Passage From Orwell's Novel 1984.....

.....Winston is confined in Room101, strapped to a chair in a way which rendered him completely immobile. In front of him were two tables on which stood two covered wire cages. O’Brien was holding a lever which would operate the cages. Impassively, O’Brien explains that what Room 101 contains is quite simply, “the worst thing in the world.” This varies from individual to individual. For some it may be torture, fire for some one else, drowning for yet others. For each individual, Room 101 held his greatest fear. When confronted with that, courage and cowardice lose their meaning, one will do whatever one has to do to avoid the horror in Room 101 as naturally and automatically as one will grab at a rope to keep from falling.....

...In Winston’s case, his greatest fear, his worst nightmare was rats and it was rats there were there in the cages in front of him. O’Brien informs him that he is going to open the cages and set the rats onto him. The rats are starving, they will sense Winston’s helplessness and devour him inch by inch. Winston cries out in terror asking O’Brien to only tell him what he has to do to avoid this. O’Brien vouchsafes no answer and lays his hand on the lever which would open the cages. In a total frenzy Winston sees the rats behind the bar and with a sudden flash of intuition realizes what he has to do to save himself. He has to take the final step of degradation, he has to betray Julia. It is no longer a matter of choice, before this threat, he is helpless. He cries out “Do it to Julia! Not me!” Repeating that cry he is aware that the lever has clicked back into place, the cage is closed. His degradation is finally completed in Room 101.....

You know - when most people read this novel they were shocked and sickened by Room 101 and its tactics. Seems like BushCo read the book too.

[Hannah Bell]

15. Orwell worked for British intelligence...WWII propaganda/censorship...

the real-life model for the Ministry of Truth.

I think he knew a few things about covert action & the ruling class, & i think about it more often these days as surveillance cameras, home computers that can be controlled from afar, "on-star" systems etc. sprout...

[rurallib]

3. listening to a bit of RW radio today. It is just a big joke to them

These people seem to be totally devoid of human feelings.

[spanone]

4. so on what fucking moral ground did we remove saddam hussein and have him hanged?

[HillbillyBob]

11. No grounds other than to shut him up about how the

bushies and cia helped him keep control over Iraq for all those years.
The chemical weapons that he was given by poppy in the 70s for his cooperation would be a big reason to keep him from spilling the beans about all that.

[pnwmom]

5. A member of the Skull and Bones society. Sounds right up their alley. n/t

[HillbillyBob]

9. How could i forget that cult connection..so many crimes

so little mind left.

[HillbillyBob]

6. they are throw backs to the savage era

before we learned to be human, or they are just nazis.

[Fla Dem]

8. The same type of people who were bullies in school . n/t

[Bandit]

10. Actually I would bet it would be the ones bullied that would come up with something like this

There often is a very deep hatred built up in those that are bullied and it would not surprise me if they didn't spend many hours dreaming of ways to get back at their tormentor.

[Warpy]

14. Or the ones who cheered the bullies

as long as the bullies were picking on somebody else for a change.

We need to revisit Hannah Arendt. This stuff isn't something bizarre and out of the ordinary. This stuff is who we really are.

Since most of us don't want to live in the kind of world where we have the potential of being subjected to it, ourselves, that's why we made it illegal.

And that's why we need to go after the men who ordered it, approved it, and justified it.

[MedleyMisty]

20. I keep picking up her books at the bookstore and thinking about getting them

but the way she writes makes my brain hurt. I think she was very much a thinking task centered person and I'm way way over on the feeling person-centered side of the scale. I guess I might have to just suck it up and read it, though, because the banality of evil is what I spend a lot of time thinking about and researching and trying to understand.

[DJ13]

12. The kind of people the Bush family had close ties to

[jtrockville]

13. I am sickened every time a talking head says "we shouldn't prosecute".

Really? We shouldn't prosecute TORTURE? (Last time I heard this was David Gergen yesterday on some cable "news" show.)

If we're not going to prosecute WAR CRIMES, why bother prosecuting any crime?

[earth mom]

19. This would be ALL over the news if some dude did this kind of shit in his basement.

He'd already be in jail awaiting trial where the book would be thrown at him and he'd be sentenced to life imprisonment, maybe even death if someone died by his hand.

Obviously, the laws of this country don't apply in Washington DC. :puke:

[baldguy]

16. I don't know his name, but he's probably a Republican lawyer.

[Bandit]

17. Do you think he is the one that thought of it or just the one trying to justify it?

I suspect there were people doing this stuff and thought they needed some protection, so asked for the legal department to provide them with some cover. You might be correct though and it could have been Bybee coming up with things to try. No matter IMO whoever thought of such a thing is not right in the head..And that makes me wonder about those defending that behavior...which seems almost to be the majority of Americans..

[baldguy]

21. They're not paid to think.

[madrchsod]

18. a person who`s worse fear is what he did to that prisoner