Systematic Torture

Let's just call it what it is: torture. Let us also find a name for America's international network of clandestine prisons. While we're doing that, perhaps we should then identify that which we have now become.

The press in the United States has been nothing more than an extension of the U.S. government for far too many years. It came as no surprise to me, then, that foreign journalists -- namely Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark -- co-wrote a very informative article that begins with Afghan woes and ends with a startling portrait of imperial arrogance. Throughout the entire piece, Levy and Scott-Clark completely obliterate the rosy picture of supposed democracy that the American people believe is the status quo in Afghanistan. They also boldly state that which no american press agent will ever write: America is becoming that which it so loudly claims is attempting to eradicate.

Legitimatizing torture and the results thereby obtained used to be the modus operandi of governments the U.S. used to call "dictatorships" and "evil". Holding prisoners without reason, evidence, or due process of law is what we used to accuse the old Soviet Union of doing.

What the hell are we doing?