The United State of Torture

If you are arrested by the US on suspicion of terrorism, their government's representatives now have a firm legal foundation to:

• Handcuff you naked in a meatlocker for hours until hypothermia has been induced.
• Force you to stand in place through clubbings and kicks for hours.
• Threaten to track down your family, your children, and torture or kill them.
• And of course, tie you to a board and hold your head underwater until you believe you are drowning.

Most of these methods were perfected by the KGB in the Soviet Union's network of gulags.

I'm embarrassed that I thought Republicans like Lindsey Graham and John McCain were going to hold out in a principaled opposition to betraying everything the USA stands for. In fact they were just grandstanding and passing the buck. George Bush's administration now has legal protection for the crimes they have committed and the ones they plan to. It's actually being called the 'torture compromise'.

Watching one of the world's biggest most inspiring democracies slip away is immeasurably sad and immeasurably terrifying.