American Atrocities
If any of you still think our country is holding to the high moral ground, you should read this. If you are not physically sick throughout a large portion of the article, there may be something wrong with you. I have a fairly strong ability to suppress revulsion, and it was entirely overcome.
The article is a description of various torture techniques that have been used in interrogations, according to "former and current intelligence officers and supervisors." [ABC News] The techniques have been authorized since March 2002, although a couple of them have now been officially banned.
A practical concern of torture, in addition to all the moral outrage that it invokes, is that you can persuade anyone to admit to anything if you apply these techniques. The most stolid of the prisoners, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was able to resist under the most horrendous of these tortures for a mere two-and-a-half minutes. It must must be utter hell, to break a well-trained man so quickly. The CIA agents who underwent it themselves withstood it for an average of only 15 seconds.
There is something wrong with our country. There is something wrong with the world. It is up to our generation to stop it, to react against the atrocities of the current age and put an end to them.