Bill Riales and Devon Walsh, go fuck yourselves.

I was watching WKRG 5 this morning when Bill Riales and the lovely Devon Walsh were discussing this story from Al Jazeera about the torture of prisoners at Guantanimo Bay. They laughed as though amused when they talked about the Elmo Song, among others, being used to torture prisoners. I agree. It's hilarious that the government, in our name, did the very things we have bombed cities and toppled governments over. It's deeply amusing that we have grossly violated Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, time and again. I can't stop laughing because our government, most notoriously under George W. Bush, violated Article VI (b) of the Nuremberg principles. I am shitting myself laughing because our nation, in this error-plagued "War on Terror", has systematically violated Articles 5 through 11, inclusive, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I mention all of these because these are our legal documents or international laws we have voted to support. It's the funniest fucking thing I've ever heard in my entire goddamned life!

During and after World War II, we treated our German and Japanese prisoners humanely, no matter what atrocities they may have ordered or supported, and ultimately got a lot of good intelligence from them. We didn't torture them. We interrogated them while holding true to our deepest, most precious principles, and this was before all of the international agreements listed above ever came into existence, though not before the Eighth Amendment, which itself was based on the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Part of that reason was principle, but part of that reason was the inaccuracy and utter worthlessness of "intel" based on torture. When one is tortured enough, eventually, he or she will say anything to make it stop. I disagree fundamentally with most of what Senator John McCain has said and done in his lengthy, undistinguished career. However, he has been a consistent moral voice against torture, based on his own experiences as a POW in Vietnam. We used to be a better nation than we now are. There was a time not too long ago that we would not have stood for this behavior, that we would have been horrified by that which has been done in our name, and when we would have risen up and demanded that those responsible be held accountable in a court of law. These are laws and principles that have been part of the governance of the United States and its predecessor colonies for over three centuries, and we have tossed them away so people could feel more "safe", without regard to the effectiveness of torture or the permanent stain this will leave on this nation's soul. If, as the Christians believe, this is "one nation under God," I ask them what type of god would support endless torture and indefinite detentions without hope of access to justice. I ask them what god would support the use of loud music for days on end, or waterboarding, or electric shocks, or the export of torture to those regimes who are even better at it than we are. I'm sorry. That last bit is euphemistically called "extraordinary rendition," except that's a lie just like "enhanced interrogation." They're both more properly called "exporting torture" and "torture." I ask them what type of god wept at the torture of His Son, yet smiles when thinking about the torture of His children, who in their world view, all humans are. To all who would support the use of torture in the name of a god, I say your god is none other than Satan, the irony being that LaVeyan Satanism is deeply influenced by the works of Nietzsche and Ayn Rand, the current darlings of the "Christian" Right. To all who would support the use of torture, I say your god is dead, and you killed Him through your hypocrisy and lies.

So, in closing, Bill Riales and Devon Walsh, go fuck yourselves. For the rest of us, we're already fucked.