Torture/Machine 1

On the same day that the horrific crimes of Saddam Hussein are finally aired in a courtroom, we find Condoleeza Rice telling European governments that it's none of their business whether the US is running secret torture chambers in their backyards or not.

Without question, at this time there is no way to compare what Hussein did and what (do we really know?) US torture experts are doing to their victims... is there? Some might say that torture is torture, no matter what.

There is some distancing reuqired, I think, to see what this means. The means used are morally equivalent, only if you compare the ends, right? That is, Saddam's tortures were done for an evil end: subjugating his poeple and maintaining power to further torture.

The US' end is to find those who would perpetrate further evil. Ostesibly, it means that we could and would stop innocent lives from being taken.

Isn't this the right way to look at it?

When push comes to shove, however, over who has the moral right to speak up for the victims of torture the US positions has been severely damaged by these substantiated reports of secret torure rooms all over the world.

Not only that, but the fact that US leaders turn a blind eye to torutre in other areas of the world, especially where American economic and political ends are concerned, as in China, then people begin to question what right the US has of telling anyone to act right or not.

You wonder whether Pres. Bush even mentioned this torture when he met with Chinese leadersa few weeks back. I'm willing to put my money on "no, he didn't."