1953-2007

Mar. 15th, 2007 02:40 pm
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[personal profile] farla
Mr. Mohammed indicated in the transcript that some of his earlier statements to C.I.A. interrogators were the result of torture. But he said that his statements at the tribunal on Saturday were not made under duress or pressure.

You know what's great? If you go read Arthur C Clark's books about the future. I remember this wonderful bit in Childhood's End, written in 1953, where this benevolent alien race takes over the earth and prevents government abuses and such. Like, in South Africa, the black majority had taken over and was persecuting the white minority and they stop that. Because of course, the worst thing in Africa after the 1950s would be denying the white minority rights.

Because of course, people are basically good and we'll continue to improve, but it won't happen all at once and it'd be great if you could speed things up in the last few holdouts.

Instead the news is not that we tortured someone until he confessed, but that we're pretty sure the new confession is true.

Fine. Okay.

See, the thing about being sad over the fall of the Roman Empire is that they were basically bastards and they deserved it. It's not a tragedy. The point where you've slaughtering rare animals to eat parts of them and then throwing up to eat more is the point it's okay for all of you to be killed by barbarians. And the point at which you're torturing people until they confess is the point you have completely justified any and all terrorism.

Hey, you know something awesome?

In 1953 the CIA killed one of their scientists and covered it up. Because he was going to talk about how they were developing torture methods that pretty much drove people insane and killed them.

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