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if you want the numbers, read the material that's behind the thread.
i've been working through small chunks as time permits.
you can argue the atrocity to the extent that you can point out the routines that enable it and in some cases the people who commit it. the routines are more important. in the case of systematic collusion with torture, those routines extend directly to donald rumsfeld. was/is it a problem for people on the ground that those routines extend to donald rumsfeld? perhaps. and they didn't **have to** participate in the collusion. but what were folk to do? report something. so they reported something. and the directive was that nothing was to happen on the basis of those reports. so nothing happened. so a system of torture was enabled. so the united states became the same as saddam hussein's regime, except incompetent.
but politically and ethically it does matter that these routines existed and that they can be extended directly to donald rumsfeld and george w. bush?
absolutely.
this seems to me a grounds for at the very least legal proceedings.
it's not ok, this torture business. and the "definition" of the ""gwot" as "not a real war" has everything to do with legitimating the use of torture.
we aren't even talking about trigger-happy us troops mowing civilians down at checkpoints. that's inside the routine horror of war, yes?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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