May 12, 2008
Philip A Farruggio

Philippe Sands has a new book out - Torture Team - which investigates the top down decision to negate and circumvent the Geneva Conventions on torture. Thus, the author (an internationally acclaimed attorney himself) suggests that US lawyers worked in concert with this administration to justify and condone methods that have been outlawed for over 50 years.

To add insult to injury, attorneys like John Yoo and Douglas Feith are now professors at prestigious universities. These men, Sands asserts, were instrumental, each by his own admission, in giving the Bush crew the green light to use the harshest and most extreme (using 'parlor talk' ) interrogation techniques.

We all now know of the photographs and the testimonies, taken and given by the US soldiers themselves, of what was done to detainees in US custody. Books have been written, affidavits taken, on just how far our government has gone to rip to shreds the Geneva Accords on treatment of prisoners. The sad fact is that many in positions of power, right up to Supreme Court Justice Scalia, have downplayed the use of torture.

How many in your own communities could not care less about it?

Question to be asked is simple: What if? What if it were your son or daughter, husband or wife, mother or father, who was submitted to such cruel and inhuman treatment? To be stripped naked and have their genitals used as a toy? To be held down and masked, and then have water forced into their mouths until they realized imminent death by drowning? To have loud, terrifying sounds piped into their cells for God knows how long, with no chance of sleep.

Sands believes that the orders to allow such atrocities came from the very highest offices of this government.

What will it take for Americans to wake up? Those who run this country, along with a compliant and subservient press corps, conducted an illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation. Where are the Hearings of Inquiry into the run- up? These actions would constitute impeachable offenses and international war crimes!

We have $ 500 or $ 600 billion dollars of our tax dollars already wasted on this disgrace in Iraq. Over 130 million of our citizens have either no health coverage or mediocre coverage at best. Mom and Pop retailers across America are going out of business, as boxstores dominate the consumer landscape. The super rich (1% of our population) control around 50% of our wealth. Schools are closing, libraries and other government run services may soon become privatized..... need I go on?

Yet, where is the outrage?

Are most out there simply awaiting a new President Obama or President McCain or President Clinton to save the day? Get real folks!  In Europe, the major democratic nations would have already seen massive street demonstrations to protest any of the aforementioned issues. Hundreds of thousands of our South American neighbors would also be out on the streets in protest. Yet, here at home....... virtual silence! Lucky to attract 5 or 10 true patriotic neighbors for a one hour a week protest.

Frederick Douglass put it succinctly: "Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has. It never will."

If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active:

Click Here for the Free Populist Party Newsletter

Philip A Farruggio [send him email] is a free lance columnist, small businessman and activist. Since the 2000 elections, he has written over 80 op ed columns- few if any get published or posted. to review some which have been shown, just google his name.

More Articles from Phil Faruggio