Well This is Incredibly Disturbing

All of the "enhanced techniques" (torture) was well-documented to determine the breaking points physically and psychologically. Not only that, but the guidelines were extremely direct and precise; written and controlled closely by the White House and the CIA. This will no doubt go down in the history of not only this country, but of the world as perhaps the lowest point in human rights history for the United States. The Bush Administration violated everything the Founding Fathers believed was important to the principles of this country; in some ways, one of the reasons they broke away from England to form the United States of America. It is well-documented that up until the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan*, regardless of how the US's adversaries treated their POWs, the US has ALWAYS systematically treated those captured during combat with humanity (minus the few rogue cases of overzealous ass-bags with no self-control). During the Revolutionary War, Washington demanded that all of the British POWs be treated humanely, despite the fact that the British tortued and executed American POWs. We've been following the Geneva Conventions before there WERE Geneva Conventions. The Bush Administration threw that all away and gave the US a black eye. Actually, it's worse than a black eye. Black eyes go away. This was more like a massive gaping scar that will never look the same. Thanks, d-bags.

*Renditions (sending suspects to third-party countries to be "interrogated") began before the Bush Presidency. Clinton started the program (I think). We were supposed to get signed documents stating that said third-party countries promised they wouldn't torture. But the US rarely asked for them and even if they got them, they didn't care if they were followed. The thing is, Clinton didn't use this program all that much. Bush took minor exceptions to the rule and turned it into a systematic, regular practice. Scary. I also didn't count the countless number of ruthless dictators and sadists whose governments the US helped prop up during the Cold War (see Nicaguan, El Salvadoran, Panamanian, Chilean etc. history texts). We didn't do a whole lot to protect human rights in those instances either.

Of course, this all can be made moot when we consider all of the genocidal and mass murdering atrocities the US failed to intervene in, unless it was in our interest. Which leaves an icky black mark on our credential record in terms of the value we place on human rights. Then again, its not like any other country does much more than we do to fix human rights atrocities around the world. But we are the leader (a much weaker one thanks to the aforementioned Administration). But no President or member of Congress is free from criticism for their inactivity in trying to aid those being slaughtered abroad (Rwanda, Sudan, Myanmar, Uzbekistan, etc.) Some try, but as a nation, we tend to fall short all of the time. It's built into our principles (somewhat) in the sense that we are a capitalist democracy and we are responsible for our own destinies. Except that a decent portion of the rest of the world doesn't function on that system, or even on that level of faith and trust in the system. Most people can't trust the system because every system turns out to be corrupt. We've been experiencing that a lot lately (see Blagojevich, the entire state government of New Jersey and New York, the Bush Administration, former Governors Sanford and Spitzer, former Representative Hastert, etc.). So maybe none of us should be surprised that we got the point we did during the Bush Administration.

I'm surprised.