A mother's point of view

What might the mother of a Marine who went through SERE training have to say about waterboarding?

You can find out here. An excerpt:

This is why I'm writing to you: Yesterday on TV I saw some Republican mouthpiece, some ex-Cheney aide, who has never worn a uniform and has NO idea what the hell he is talking about, say that we never tortured anyone because we did it to our own troops and they volunteered to serve; therefore it isn't torture. His statement was allowed to stand unchallenged.

My son did NOT volunteer to be tortured. He was NOT told what would be done to him at SERE. He was told he would be taught to survive. Instead he was tortured, humiliated, degraded, shamed, and told to keep quiet about it. How in God's name would that prepare any of our troops to survive capture? It won't. It will only make them break quicker in the hopes of not having to go through more torture.

Who will speak up for my son and the others like him who joined the military to serve and who were subjected to sadistic torture, not by the enemy, but by the war criminals ostensibly on our side? These people, Cheney and his talking heads, everyone of them chicken hawks who avoided serving, should NOT be allowed to use torturing our troops as rationalization for their crimes.

As for Dick (may be burn in hell) Cheney, McClatchy has a new article up recording his past lies and pointing to the increasingly obvious reality that torture was NOT about saving American lives but about justifying the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In other words, an immoral illegality in service of another immoral illegality.

There. Is. No. Justification. For. What. They. Ordered. Done.

WASHINGTON — Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, defending the invasion of Iraq, asserted in 2004 that detainees interrogated at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp had revealed that Iraq had trained al Qaida operatives in chemical and biological warfare, an assertion that wasn't true.

Did I mention that the lying, sadistic bastard known as Dick Cheney should burn in hell? And that I violate my own theology to even postulate this, so deep is my loathing and indignation when that vile hellspawn is the topic?

h/t to mcjoan (again, bless her)

Let's round this out with a haiku in "honor" of Liz Cheney:

Daddy's Little Girl
Wuvs when the bad, bad mans are
Slammed against the wail . . .

La pomme ne tombe pas loin du pommier.

h/t t Joe Sudbay at Americablog and KarenMrsLloydRichards

--the BB