Torture me happy

The Bill I sign today helps secure this country, and it sends a clear message: This nation is patient and decent and fair, and we will never back down from the threats to our freedom.” - US President Bush

The Bill that Prez Bush is talking about is the anti-terroristm law that allows torture of persons suspected to be terrorist. A nation that allows torture doesn't sound very "patient and decent and fair" to me. It sounds like it wants to get fast results out of the flesh of its 'enemies'. The message that the USA has sent out is not something that strikes fear into the hearts of its enimies. or something that causes its allies to swell with pride. It is a move that inflames those already apposed to the USA and causes the Allies to newly question thier own morals.

Torture is not easily dismissed if you any sort of conscience. According to The Psychology of Torture, torture takes away a person's soul. "[It] is the ultimate act of perverted intimacy. The torturer invades the victim's body, pervades his psyche, and possesses his mind."

This article used the terms 'coercion' and 'torture' interchangably.

The CIA, in its "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983" (reprinted in the April 1997 issue of Harper's Magazine), summed up the theory of coercion thus:

"The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy, a reversion to an earlier behavioral level. As the subject regresses, his learned personality traits fall away in reverse chronological order. He begins to lose the capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to deal with complex situations, or to cope with stressful interpersonal relationships or repeated frustrations."

What scares me though is the fact that Human Rights have stated that "Once captors are given license to torture, the abuse of large numbers of prisoners usually becomes standard operating procedure."

The only question left is, Where will this end?