Torture ~~~Do We Care???? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Humor is the way we deal with embarrassment. It is so painful we don't really want to cry, but IT IS REAL!

    Years ago I read an article in Reader's Digest concerning a man arrested in NYC as he took pictures after 9/11 of a government building. The Detective who participated in the arrest and investigation took a personal interest in him. He wore a turban and was whisked off to jail. From there he was taken to a detention facility, I think, at Guantanamo. His family was not notified. He was denied any due process. He would have languished there, had the Detective not followed up and made some waves over his treatment.

    He was nothing more than an innocent Tourist arrested by Homeland Security brutality!

    NYC is a long way from Beaufort County. That was long ago and far away for many. The report from yesterday was not what any of us want to hear about America and our brutality to prisoners. Even John McCain voiced the Republican Party response. I was totally surprised that the man who usually pops up on Fox News in rebuttal of "anything Obama" showed his pain and angst. For the first time in many years he shows some understanding of how it feels to be imprisoned and tortured. Even he admits it was wrong and a violation of human rights in America!

    What will come of it?

    NO PROSECUTION of those responsible is today's report. Who are "those responsible?"

    •  President George Bush

    •  V.P. Dick Cheney

    •  The CIA and Homeland Security leadership at the time

    I don't know about you, but I see the same brutality as happened in Germany with Jews, Gypsies, and any other outcasts they wanted to cleanse from their "perfect society." The rants of Hitler and his henchmen remind me of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others who now are piled on the Blaze Network of Conservative Commentators. Goebbels was the Minister of Propaganda and he went before the Judges of Nuremberg after the War. One after another, Mengele and any Nazis who had not committed suicide were punished. Others quietly slipped away to Argentina and hid. There is still a camp in the hillside there where Nazis live in a compound and do experiments on children. The Koch family was one which quietly slipped to America and engaged in big oil and other enterprises today.

    The Jewish Holocaust Investigators are still chasing them down. Every few years we hear of another Nazi brought to justice over their brutal treatment of prisoners. Time and memory fade for us Americans. For the Jews who experienced it, it will never go away until the last person responsible is brought to justice! Their children are my age and still want Justice.

    Some years ago I was in Fort Meyers, FLA, doing clean-up from hurricane Charlie. I picked up their paper and in the obituary area was a 11/2 page large article on a Nazi Officer who had died. I was amazed at the big article and began to wonder why. It suddenly occurred to me that there were 2 reasons for it:

    1. Many of the residents around there are German and Jewish.

    2. Anyone reading it had 2 reactions

    (1) The man is now before the Judgment Throne of God / (2) Any German knows it is not forgotten even though it happened a century ago.

    Human memories fade with time. The Judgment of God is assured by the Bible. God knows our hearts and is not fooled by political ads or pretense of "being nice and right" in our minds.

    George Bush was asked toward the end of his Presidency if he had any regrets or wished he had done anything different. In his usual dense response he fumbled and bumbled and finally said, "I can't think of any. I wish you had given me the question ahead of time." Is he REALLY that dense and ignorant? OR---does he not want to admit what went on under his power over the CIA and Military we sent to get Sadam Hussein. By now, we know there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. It was a "Mass Distraction," and the ben Laden family was deeply entrenched with the Bush family over oil.

    Truth always rises in a free country with a free press.

    V.P. Dick Cheney is another matter of Coercion without Conscience, in my view. We now know in the light of disclosure that he and Rumsfield were key players in presidential politics from the early days with Nixon and Reagan. They were old college and business buddies who got the reward of friendship and conspiracy. More often the co-conspirators are far more well-informed and active than any front guy. All Presidents are simply the PR part of an Administration.

    Reagan was a nice seeming old man who was winsome. He sold 20 Mule team Borax and GE for many years before any political activity. He did not conceive the "Trickle Down Economic Theory." He just sold it to Congress and the American taxpayer with a promise that it would make things move in a more Capitalist way --- and --- fast without all the regulations and oversight of a too big federal government. He said, "It will be good for America and its citizens!" We believed him and now we see 1% of citizens owning 80% of money in this economy.

    Time is the test of any theory of economics. To quote Sarah Palin, "How's that working for ya'????" She may be a soccer mom, but we all should begin to have a clue over what is working and what is not.

    How's the torture thing working for ya'?

    Are we, as a nation, as good as we pretend to be

    or have we descended into the hell of torture in the hidden corners of Vengeance? Nobody wants to admit to being a member of the Nazi party and regime. It was a terrible chapter in human history. We went to war to stop inhumanity in Europe. We went to war with Japan over their human rights abuses and abject destruction of all humans they conquered. Few are still alive who were in the death march from Corregidor to their brutal detention of a Japanese POW camp. The residents of Nazi Concentration Camps are dying off fast, but their children watch and wait for justice.

    Old O.J. Simpson got off when 2 people he knew ended up in a bloodbath of knife and slash. But is he happy and is he really innocent?

    The question is important and we can laugh and ignore all we want but

    IT HAPPENED IN AMERICA AFTER 9/11. People WERE TORTURED. Some are dead and gone.

    For me it's NOT A LAUGHING MATTER. I am a believer who expects God to take care of things we can't. I am also a person who believes criminals should be brought to justice in this lifetime.

    •  Who are they?

    •  What should we really do to make us right in the eyes of a watching world we want to immolate us?

    •  Should anyone be prosecuted for War Crimes?