Two news reports. One about a former Chilean dictator. One about our Bullshitter-in-Chief. Note the similarities. This from Reuters regarding Augusto Pinochet’s arrest for torture, murder and kidnapping early in his regime and this from the BBC regarding the bullshitter’s denial that the U.S. uses torture.
Is it possible we’ll read one day about the arrest of a former U.S. president on the same sort of charges? (Pinochet is being held “for 36 cases of kidnapping, one of homicide and for 23 cases of torture” committed at a detention center run by his secret police.)
To ask the question implies an answer — and why, despite claims to the contrary (such as “saving American lives”), the bullshitter’s Republican enablers rammed through the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
The new law was designed to protect him and his henchmen from potential prosecution.
As reported by ABC News:
The legislation says the president can “interpret the meaning and application” of international standards for prisoner treatment, a provision intended to allow him to authorize aggressive interrogation methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts.
The bill not only “authorizes continued harsh interrogations of terror suspects,” it applies to “14 suspects who were secretly questioned by the CIA overseas and recently moved to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay.”
Since the interrogations are top secret, there is no way to verify the bullshitter’s claims. But even if American lives have been saved, the legislation is a statist endorsement of thuggery. It puts government officials beyond the reach of justice by bending the law to their purpose. And it contradicts the U.S. Constitution, let alone American ideals (if not the realities).
