Sadly this is a common Texas sentiment.
There is a disconnect, although, I am sure
it is not just Texas. OF COURSE, we would
not appreciate if the tables were turned
and we were in a situation where our men
and women were captives and being tortured.

Until there is a shift of consciousness
and we begin to apply the Golden Rule to
all aspects of human dealings, we will
continue to cause pain for ourselves and
others with a tit for tat, and I win, you
lose, mentality.

This is the Age of Darkness so I suppose
the battle for light against darkness must
continue...

As a side note, there was a huge world
wide outcry when recently a young woman
disobeyed her cultural laws and was traveling
unattended by a male of her family and so men
wrongfully took advantage of this and gang-raped
her. In court, she was the one who was to be
punished for transgressing the law and tempting
the men. Not that I agree with that, but the
point was that the Saudi's were compelled to
*pardon* this woman and so she was not given
200 lashes, and yet, the same world will
not decry the use of hideous torture in
fishing for information when often it was
the United State's bounties which brought many
of these men into their possession. Often it
has been shown it was for retribution or
for the money that others handed over their
countrymen and of course they had nothing to
tell but were tortured and suffered at our
hands for the money they were worth. We
created this.

That the videos of this level of torture were
destroyed (supposedly) also is telling. I am
not buying that they would have compromised
National Security to the extent that knowing
the truth of our brutality outweighed the
culpability of those who engaged in this behavior
which is illegal. This administration's efforts
to circumvent international law and to rewrite
their own interpretation of what our own country
allows in the name of their fight against terror
is not acceptable to most of us. I do not buy that
it behooves us that some of us are willing to do
the dirty work of this kind of activity to gain
the upper hand in this war. This mentality will
only breed continued ill-will toward our nation,
as well as the men and women who represent us
in countries where we have a military presence.

be well,
Zoe

-_-

While I can appreciate the comments Zoë makes regarding this situation, this is one of the problems in our country today. We listen with great "caring" to what our enemies have to say about us and do our best to be "sensitive to their side" without regard to how their words and/or actions hurt our country. We are quick to accept blame for how others feel about America, but are slow and less eager to defend this great country for fear of "offending" others. When one of our own says something that may sound like harsh words, but clearly define how they feel, e.g., the way T. B. Bechtel expressed himself with his "Red is positive," etc., comment; we are quick to launch an assault on him because he used an unrealistic characterization of how he felt about Terrorism in our country. I don't believe for a moment he meant his statement to be taken literally but certainly figuratively. And personally, I agree with him. We dismiss the evil that others do to our military men and women as "their culture" and give harsh criticism to our country when we put under garments on a hostile terrorist in order to shame him into giving us life saving information. I am thankful to God that these folks that are so quick to sell out our Country for their liberal, sensitive, inclusive, love them damn us feelings, were not being heard when we fought our many wars to keep our land free from oppression. And I would love nothing more than to see those folks pack up their bags and get the hell out of our country and go live where they can enjoy first hand how the rest of the world lives. Good bye and God bless.

Prideful