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From: Mark Perkel
Re: Torture and bank records
Date: June 26, 2005
The tragic deaths of two us servicemen in Iraq who were captured and tortured is complicated by the Bush administration's pro-torture position.
Bush started advocating torture at the beginning of the Iraq occupation. That lead to the Abu Ghraib scandal and the revelation that we have a network of secret foreign prisons to which we ship people to be tortured and killed. So when our people are kidnapped and tortured, we can no longer say that we are above that. It becomes an argument as to what we are allowed to torture and they aren't–and that is a far weaker position to defend.
Many people outside the United States reason that if we participate in torture, then we hove no moral standing to complain about it when it happens to us.
That's why it's important to realize that we have to stop torturing if we expect others to stop torturing us. Torture is always wrong, and only then can we retake the moral high ground.
One other point...
The government has been caught listening in on our phone calls without a warrant and they said that it was only between Americans and foreign terrorists. But it turns out they are tracing all phone calls. Now we find out that they are looking into bank accounts! Will we soon find out that they are tracking all our spending without a warrant? Are they lying about this too? When the government breaks the law then there is no law.
I'm Marc Perkel - And I approved this message!
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