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Thursday, 14 August 2014

The CIA (An Australian perspective)

By Ross Middleton

My stomach curdles at the thought
A legitimate body in the USA
Believes it justified
Believes it right
Though they admit it's regrettable
To torture those who oppose them
Torture them in terrible ways

Many people condone this behaviour
Believing it necessary
And for the good of the country
We know
We all know
Even them
It is not for the good of our souls

There is no need however
To bring religious considerations into the argument
Keeping it at the level of civil society
Our subjecting people to this treatment
Will only accelerate the disintegration of our values

However much entrepreneurs soldiers and their ilk
Perform immoral acts
The more likely there will be a reaction
The enemy will respond in like fashion
And the world goes into a downward spiral

When politicians and media people argue for such actions
They are degrading us

To live in fear is bad enough
To know that your own side is as bad as the other
Is a disaster


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Posted by Ronni Bennett at 05:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post

Comments

I couldn't have said it better myself, Ross.

I very much agree with you on this.

What a wonderful way of saying just what so many of us think. Thanks.

Well written, Ross. My shame from any childhood, teen-aged (and adult!) misdeed pales to how this feels. Will we ever learn?

Amen.

Well said.

Perhaps if Mr. Middleton were in lower Manhattan on 9/11 and the days following that event and saw what I and my fellow New Yorkers saw and felt, he would get off his holier than thou high horse. A little water-boarding is nothing compared to what happened to 3000 innocent human beings on that day.

Bruce...
You are not the only person who was in lower Manhattan on 9/11 and you may not speak for anyone but yourself.

If you believe 9/11 justifies torture of anyone anywhere forever after, you may not suggest others agree.

Further, however, at this blog, no commenter may ever, as above, make a personal attack on another commenter or writer in words or tone.

When it happens, you get one warning (this is it) before being banned from commenting.

I did not mean this as an attack on Mr. Middleton, but rather as an attack on those people who obviously don't know what they are talking about. Why is it that it's always the "Big Bad USA" that gets chastised for wanting to keep it's citizens safe. One never hears about what goes on in the basements of other countries CIA equivalents including, I dare say, Australia's. I know I don't speak for everybody who was there on that day, but not everybody walked home with thousands of stunned, weeping and frightened people.

The sad fact is that research shows most of the information gained by torture is unreliable, untruthful, irrelevant and just plain pretty useless - but the damage done to both the sufferer and the torturers is immense.

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