Nobody was beheaded or killed

In America a proud defense of suspect political activity sounds something like, "Well, no crime was committed," or "It was legal." I've always been more disgusted with what's legal rather than what is illegal. It's sort of the same way with the phrase "appearance of a conflict of interest" or "appearance of impropriety." Either there is a conflict of interest or not. Either there is impropriety or not. Sorry "appearances." Now Iraq has improved on the "It was legal" or "no one was indicted for the underlying crime" defense.

Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, has defended a government facility that was found to be holding dozens of prisoners, including some showing signs of torture, saying it held "the most criminal terrorists." Jabr casually told the reporters, "Nobody was beheaded or killed." I guess this counts as progress in Iraq and may be cited by W or his boss Cheney as why we need to stay the course. Jabr then added, "You can be proud of our forces," Jabr said. "Our forces ... respect human rights." Obviously, Jabr learned from W who recently said "We do not torture" with a straight face as his boss Cheney was lobbying for a torture exception for the CIA. I guess that would allow Cheney and the CIA to say "It's all legal and we didn't behead anyone." Nobody getting killed is another story.

And before all you tough, patriotic couch potatoes in the middle of watching a "24" marathon on dvd, read anything and everything about what Sen. John McCain is saying about the benefits (none) of torture or the 90-9 vote banning it (really just getting the military to follow the Army manual on the subject) or how the Israelis are successful in counter-terrorism without it. Watching Denzel chop fingers off in "Man on Fire" might seem to get results but dude, it's a movie. If the U.S. catches some "ticking bomb" suspect who knows when some attack or nuke is going to go off - be my guest go torture. I'll even bring my This Old House toolbox to help out. Why? Because in that rare and to date never has happened scenario whoever is pulling teeth out or chopping off fingers would get a pardon. They would probably even name more than one grade school after them. I can see it now "The Curmudgeon Elementary School." Has a nice ring to it. I mean school is torture for most students anyway why not name one or two after torturers. We could start with George W. Bush prep school (Preparing mediocre students to become excellent torturers) and The Cheney School (We put the hospital back into hospitality? We put the fun back in fundamentalist? I'm working on it).

On the other hand, if torture were illegal I wouldn't able to share my blog with the world.