Money makes the world go round

But torture makes me sick.

Avedon Carol of The Sideshow shows what this war was really about... Greed:

At the NYT, some chump change:

"A North Dakota manufacturer has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a suit saying it had repeatedly shortchanged the armor in up to 2.2 million helmets for the military, including those for the first troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan."

They deliberately endangered our troops for money. Harry Truman said war profiteers are traitors. You don't just fine traitors.

Exactly. Usually you line them up before a firing squad and shoot them. Shortchanging helmets? Why isn't this company getting to pay for care of the brain-damaged soldiers being brought back from Iraq? How about forcing the CEO to do community service at the local Disabled Veterans Association? WTF?

And speaking of assuming that all of us are with the Bush administration in this glorious adventure in Iraq, here is an utter dimwit representative declaring that Americans all really support torture:

When questioning Attorney General Michael Mukasey today, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) insisted that “99% of Americans would support” waterboarding, and emphasized that the Bush administration should “not be defensive about using” the technique:

In regard to interrogation techniques — and I know you’re going to be asked a lot of questions about that today — I just want to express the personal opinion that I hope the administration will not be defensive about using some admittedly harsh but nonlethal interrogation techniques, even techniques that might lead someone to believe they’re being drowned even if they’re not.

My guess is that 99 percent of the American people, if asked whether they would endorse such interrogation techniques to be conducted on a known terrorist with the expectation that information that might be derived from such interrogation would save the lives of thousands of Americans, that 99 percent of the American people would support such interrogation techniques.

As Paul Kiel points out, a recent CNN poll showed that 68% of Americans said waterboarding was torture, and 58% said the U.S. should not be allowed to use the technique against suspected terrorists.

Only cowards and those who are mortally afraid of their enemy need to use torture. We can get answers and information from people without debasing ourselves. For those who are tortured suffer, but those who torture are lost and become monsters themselves.

Torture is torture. And we are better than that.