Bush is a terrorist(!) in Cornhusker country;

U.S. government is as savage as its enemies

Last Wednesday, President George W. Bush put forward legislation that would authorize U.S. military and intelligence forces to torture and dehumanize those they view as a threat. This legislation spits in the face of the Geneva Conventions and the protections that more than a hundred states, including the U.S., enacted to protect the dignity of human life.

The simple and straightforward demands of the Geneva Conventions to end “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment” have been deemed too vague by the Bush administration to be practical in their “war on terror.” Apparently, in the eyes of Bush and his collaborators, the only effective way to fight terrorism is to endorse state-sanctioned terrorism in the form of torture.

Following Bush’s call for expanded U.S. use of terrorism was a detailed account of how the government has been using its power already. Al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah was captured by U.S. intelligence forces and transferred to a holding cell in Thailand where his American captors physically and mentally abused him. He was stripped, thrown in a bare room and exposed to temperatures so low that he, one official said, turned blue. Because he was still unwilling to talk, the U.S. forces played high-decibel blasts of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The HORROR! Happened to me at a kegger once– bad case of whiskey dick… memories won’t leave me alone.

Sadly, this is prerogative our government claimed – the right to pick and choose which people are deserving of human dignity. You don’t have to look to their foreign policy to see this, either. Forget about the horrors of Abu Ghraib. Dismiss the humiliations of Guantanamo. Dehumanization is the first reaction here in the States as well.

The elitist and racist response to Hurricane Katrina shows our government does not reserve dehumanization for foreigners alone. We reduce people to statistics, to votes, to a probable economic impact. Politicians have turned humans and human issues into neatly prepackaged sound bytes for re-election propaganda. Gay marriage, reproductive rights and education have all been stripped of their human elements and calculated into voting percentages, civil and constitutional rights be damned.

This mentality cannot simply be explained away with vague references to national security or, ironically, family values. When our nation does not respect basic principles of human rights or its own citizens’ civil rights, something has gone terribly wrong. The basic lesson that our government exists by the will of the people has been ignored or simply forgotten.

Katrina = Abu Ghraib!

Daily Nebraskan has the audacity to actually solicit feedback here. (honest)

Terp Mole on September 12, 2006 at 2:42 PM

Please don’t go off-topic, Terp

Sorry. Figured nutroots is nutroots.

Gimme’ the netiquette cluebat. What’d I do wrong?

/drinkin’ off yesterday

Terp Mole on September 12, 2006 at 3:20 PM