'We do not fucking torture'

Apparently, it's not true that everybody at Fox "News" is a complete jackass. While Trace Gallagher was trying to explain the "two school of thought" on whether torture is effective during the online "Strategy Room," Shepherd Smith interrupted. Pounding his hand on the desk in front of him for emphasis, he was very nearly shouting.

We are America! I don’t give a rat’s ass if it helps, we are America! We do not fucking torture! We don’t do it.

Gallagher continued as if he hadn't heard Smith. Somebody said "Oops," apparently realizing the newsman had said a bad word -- or maybe realizing he'd stepped out of the conservative talking points -- and Smith repeated "doesn't matter, we don't do it," more quietly. Don't believe me? Here. Watch it.



He was a little less, ahem, emphatic, on his own show, but still got the point across.

We are America. We don't torture. And the moment that is not the case, I want off the train.

Damn, I sure hope nobody makes him apologize for speaking his mind. It is, of course, against Fox policy to condemn anything a Republican administration does, particularly anything related to national security. At least he didn't insult Rush Limbaugh. And, um, where was he for the past eight years?

Speaking of whom, the Real Leader of the Republican Party compared the outcry against such a barbaric practice with the outcry against domestic violence, and not in a good way.

We have allowed — we have allowed these guys, Obama and his buddies over at the CIA and in Congress, to water down the definition of torture to mean anything that makes a person uncomfortable. You know what this reminds me of? Remember when the NOWgang and all these other social interest groups started asking women if they’d ever been a victim of domestic violence? They didn’t like the numbers they got initially. The numbers weren’t high enough for the NOW gang. So they expanded the definition to include a man shouting at them. A man shouting at them equaled domestic violence. It didn’t matter if the women shouted first. But let’s not get sidetracked. The important thing to understand is that these appeasers have painted themselves into a corner. Dick Cheney has now called their bluff. The stark truth is that despite what the political left and the Hollywood elite say, extreme measures, enhanced measures, so-called torture — whatever you want to call it — it works. And he’s seen the memos. And he wants them released.

Right. It works. That might be why the FBI director, Robert Mueller, said last year in a Vanity Fair interview that he did not "believe" that there had been a case where "any attacks had been disrupted because of intelligence obtained through the coercive methods." Oh, and just to be sure, Mueller's office confirmed that again on Tuesday.

And torture is anything that makes somebody feel uncomfortable? Hell, I'm uncomfortable right now because there's a damn cat on my lap and my leg is tingling. I guess I should call him a torturer. But that really doesn't compare with, say, being forced to stand for hours on end with your arms held above your head or being forced to masturbate while being photographed or being threatened by a snarling police dog, including the threat of letting the dog off the leash.

(Torture cat is a representation of News Writer's cat and not News Writer's actual cat)

So if deliberately harming another human being didn't stop any attacks, I guess that just leaves Dennis Blair's "deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization," which, I suspect, could have been gotten from just as easily and with less destruction to our image abroad from the Federation of American Scientists or GlobalSecurity.org or even Wikipedia.

Limbaugh and his video game addict buddies are so wrong on this one that they just guaranteed themselves a ticket straight to the hell they believe in so completely. Lou Dobbs, CNN's complete moron, said yesterday that the administration was "on the defensive" over this issue. Really? Because I kinda thought they've been quite firm about the whole thing. Torture is banned. Waterboarding, etc., is torture. Now, they've been too wishy-washy for my tastes about dragging the miscreants who ordered this vile practice (and those who did it -- I don't buy the "just following orders line"). But they've been quite clear that torture is wrong. And now, really, America does not torture. But defensive? Must be wishful thinking.

Let's see. Torture didn't stop any attacks. Probably didn't get any confessions -- which is generally the real purpose of torture -- because from what I've seen, the "high value detainees" have been quite proud of their accomplishments. Maybe have gotten false confessions from the innocent people dragged into American custody just because. And any "deeper understanding" could have been gotten from anywhere.

So for what godforsaken reason did the Bush administration's minions think it necessary to waterboard a guy 183 times in 30 days?

There's only one answer to that.

Revenge.

Because, you know, waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, didn't work the first 182 times. But that 183rd, boy, he spilled his guts then.

Conservatives want revenge. Anyone with the audacity of attacking them must be punished. And they have very long memories for that sort of thing. Honestly, revenge was the reason for the ridiculous assault on Bill Clinton in the 1990s -- revenge for kicking out Richard Nixon. Never mind that Clinton really was a bit of a scumbag and pretty damn conservative himself -- he was a Democrat. And for that, he must die.

See, conservatives see themselves as all powerful, not to be challenged. It's the very basis of the Party of No. Challenging them -- and winning -- has to be punished. It's not about discipline. It's about revenge. Showing them who's boss. Reinforcing strict hierarchical standings.

Sara Robinson at the Campaign for America's Future likens it to two differing parenting styles:

For conservatives, the goal of discipline is to assert the power of external authority. In their worldview, most people aren't capable of self-discipline. They can't be trusted to behave unless there's someone stronger in control who's willing to scare them back into line when they misbehave. Don't question the rules. Don't defy authority. Just do what you're told, and you'll be fine. But cross that line, dammit, and there will be hell to pay.

In this view, the whole point of punishment is for greater beings (richer, whiter, older, male) to impress the extent of their authority upon lesser beings (poorer, darker, younger, female). I'm in control, I make the rules, and I'm the only one of us entitled to use force to get my way. Since emotional and/or physical domination is the goal, the punishments themselves often use some kind of emotional or physical violence to drive home that point. Spanking, humiliation, arrest, jail and torture all fill the bill quite nicely. I'm not interested in what you think. Do as I say, or I will be within my rights to do whatever it takes to make you behave.

Note, too, the hierarchical nature of this system. Those at the top of the heap enjoy the freedom that comes with never being held accountable by anyone. This exemption is implicit in conservative notions of 'liberty,' and is considered an inalienable (if not divine) right of fathers, bosses, religious leaders, politicians, and anyone else on the right who holds power over others. The privilege of controlling others' liberty, without enduring reciprocal constraints on your own, is at the heart of the true meaning of 'freedom.'

Liberal parenting books, on the other hand, talk a lot about "logical and natural consequences." Since liberals believe that most people are perfectly capable of making good moral choices without constant oversight from some outside authority, the goal of discipline is to strengthen the child's internal decision-making skills in order to prepare him for adult self-governance.

Wherever possible, parents are encouraged to do this by letting misbehaving kids live with the natural consequences of their own bad choices. I'm not mad at you. I still love you. But you spent all your allowance on Tuesday, and now you get to be broke until Saturday—and I'd be lying to you if I let you think that the world works any other way. Since you two can't figure out a peaceable way to share that toy, I'm going to take it away. Now that you've annoyed the bus driver to the point where the principal had to call me and put you off the bus for a week, you're not going anywhere else for a while, either—including that big event this weekend you've been looking forward to for the past two months.

So here we are. Big Daddy is exploding all over the place that he just might be actually held accountable for his actions, which is, of course, completely nonsensical to him. He's Big Daddy. He's in charge. He is always right.

And so they lie. The administration is on the defensive. There are memos showing how torture worked. It wasn't really torture.

But they lie because they know that torture is wrong. They know they authorized and utilized torture, and they know it's wrong. And now they have to raise a huge fuss to distract us.

To distract us from the real reason for the torture. To keep us from knowing that they only did it because they could. Because they were pissed at the assholes who dared to attack this country. Because the assholes deserved punishment, strong punishment, not the weak little slap on the wrist that the laws of the United States would give them.

For all their bluster about loving America, conservatives actually hold our system of government in great contempt. They hate the deliberative nature of the courts, the legislative branch of government. They hate -- as we saw only too well in the past 8 years -- that a president isn't the sole arbiter of power, that America does not have a monarch, a dictator, a tyrant.

And they hate you and me -- because we can see right through them. As Digby noted,

Here's the thing: these people are puerile, schoolyard thinkers who believe in any means to an end. If they could have done what they truly wanted to do after 9/11, they would have opened concentration camps or started a nuclear war. They believe that you have to use everything you have at your disposal or the wogs (everyone but us) will think you are weak. That's the full extent of their understanding of the way the world works.

That using torture and endless imprisonment of innocent people are immoral and disgusting taboos that put the perpetrator in the same company as history's most evil villains is entirely unpersuasive to these people --- they think that's a good thing. But even on a practical level that even a very average 9th grader should be able to understand, you would hope they could see that these people hurt the nation in ways that we'll be dealing with for decades --- we showed that America loses its head when attacked, overreacts, spends and then botches the whole thing so badly we don't know whether we are coming or going. We've shown that we are pants wetting, panic artists who will harm ourselves when frightened. And that is a weakness no powerful nation should ever allow the world to see.

Our task now is to make sure that the Obama administration does what's necessary to hold these people accountable for their actions. Not doing so will guarantee it will happen again, and we the People cannot allow that to happen.


News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop the Press!

Cross-posted at Stop the Press!

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Peace Y'all