05-05-2009, 10:24 AM
Peter Lemkin Wrote:ALFRED McCOY: Yes. The number of times—one of the al-Qaeda suspects was waterboarded eighty-three times. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, was waterboarded 183 times. This is extraordinary. This is beyond the idea of sort of clinical, scientific, dispassionate torture. That’s pure sadism. Pure sadism. And that’s another problem of torture, OK?
183 times. McCoy's right. that's not torture but sadism.
Quote:ALFRED McCOY: Two points. First of all, waterboarding is torture under US law, because it constitutes a death threat. OK? It’s a threat to die by drowning. Alright? So, one, waterboarding is torture. President Obama is correct. It’s a violation of law, and all of those that ordered it should be prosecuted for violations of federal statutes.
Second point, her argument that you had to be there, because the nation was at risk, that’s the argument that every Latin American military dictator made for brutal torture and summary executions, arguing that the communists, the barbarians were at the gate, and therefore extreme measures were qualified. That’s impunity. Every Latin American dictatorship, every Latin American nation that emerges from dictatorship finds the same argument: we had to do it because the nation was at risk. That’s how you get impunity.
The self justification cum legal-speak used by Rice reminds me of the Nazi excuses at the Nuremburg trails that they were "only following orders".
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14