Yes, we could do it, but it wouldn’t be easy. We would need (over the course of 6 years) to oust every member of congress, and elect people who are intelligent, far-sighted, honest, and able to stand up to tremendous lobbying pressure. We would need the cooperation of a very large, ignorant fraction of the population to get a whole lot smarter and more interested in the wider world.

It should be easy, but so should solving most of the rest of our problems (poverty; global warming; access to education, water and food; and whatnot). All the legal, technological, and scientific solutions exist, but people are irrational (in ways sometimes good, sometimes bad) and fallible, and that holds everything up.

Of course, that’s always the assumption of the cowardly and the naive.

I’m not okay with that being a matter of opinion. Words have meanings and if I were to be tortured, I wouldn’t want my case thrown out of court because someone could just as easily say I was only interrogated. In a court of law, it matters what word you use. I mean, oh my goodness, has no one read 1984?

Either they were tortured or they were interrogated and we all have to live with that.

“You are saying that on an American blog”

Is this really an American blog? Or is the internet international? Seriously, you Americans can be so self-centred sometimes. I’m sure thousands of people from other countries (such as myself) read this blog.

“we’re going to be stepping in these Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld droppings for the next 30 years…”

Wow. Clever. Never seen someone put down the previous administration before. I hate to break it to you and all of your friends, but your Almighty Obama isn’t doing much of anything these days. I would rather have the residual effects of the previous administration actually accomplishing something by getting sensitive information out of terrorists than the current administration attempting to get everyone to hold hands.

Wake up my friend, the world is an ugly place.

Spare me, friend. Pick any country, any leader, any timeframe, and you’ll find exactly the same practices. But generally far more brutal, far more politically driven, and far less effective. War is a messy business.

The reason why you’re reading about an American secret prison instead of a similar facility operated by countries like France or Italy or Qatar is because nobody much gets off on hating France or Italy or Qatar. Well, that and the fact that America doesn’t have a habit of assassinating or disappearing pesky journalists who write articles about secret prisons. Unlike, say, Russia or China.

Just like the government officials like plausible deniability when it comes to most unpleasant stuff; we the public like plausible deniability when it comes to our goverment’s goings on.

We, the people, could very easily insist on real transparency, and our idea of proper behavior, if even 1/2 of us were so inclined.

You are saying that on an American blog.

What a tool.

That’s right, generalise a whole country under one category, goes to show how great a person you are.

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2002-11/a-2002-11-22-33-Bush.cf m?moddate=2002-11-22