Old Fogey's Quotes on Torture

"In his view, Mr. Arar was being held in a country with many of the same values as Canada."
Ontario Justice Dennis O'Connor, in his report vindicating Muslim Canadian Maher Arar, who U.S. authorities secretly whisked to Syria, where he was tortured
Canadian Was Falsely Accused, Panel Says
[Doesn't it make you wonder what all might turn up if US justices had the free access to government documents that Justice O'Connor did? I can't believe how we in the US can not be outraged, but it is even more incredible that many can't understand why the rest of the world is outraged. The article noted: 'Those renditions are often carried out by CIA agents dressed head to toe in black, wearing masks, who blindfold their subjects and dress them in black.' It's high time someone took away the Chimp's decoder ring, before he destroys any more lives]

"Bush says he is waging a 'struggle for civilization,' but civilized nations do not debate slavery or genocide, and they don't debate torture, either. This spectacle insults and dishonors every American."
Eugene Robinson in WaPo editorial
Torture Is Torture
[I feel like I have been trapped in a bad novel jointly written by George Orwell, Victor Hugo, and Emile Zola]

"It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective."
George W. Bush, Torturer-in-Chief
transcript
[I seem to remember more than a few Iraqi women and children losing their lives due to US action--I guess they are technically not women and children since they are not Americans]

"Until recently, such 'disappearances' were the signature of Third World dictatorships."
WaPo editorial, referring to practice of sequestering terrorist suspects indefinitely and without charge in secret foreign locations and holding them incommunicado
Washington Post editorial board
[How in the world can people believe that such actions make them safer when terrorists are seeking to convince people that the US is evil?]

"But behind that seems to be a deeply seated conviction that under his leadership, America is right and does not need the discipline of rules. He does not seem to understand that the rules are what makes this nation as good as it can be."
NYT editorial
New York Times editorial board
[Since Bush will certainly never put any limits on himself, the American voters must]

"You're basically saying trust us. But after Abu Ghraib, after the misleading statements on weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's links to al Qaeda, isn't it asking a lot of Congress and the country and the world simply to take your arguments on faith?"
George Stephanopoulos to national security adviser Stephen Hadley, asking what unnamed 'alternative' interrogation practices are to be protected in Bush's proposed bill
Torture Is All in the Subtext
[This would be funny, if it were not so heartbreakingly dangerous]