<p>“Mini, is there anything you DO like about the US? Talk about the “hate America” crowd – you must be a founding member.”</p>
<p>Funny, that’s the way I would have labeled you. Government snooping in your library records. Jailing librarians who even reveal that the government is snooping in your library records. Good American values. “Renditioning” (heartily denied by Her Royal Mendaciousness, then admitted without a recollection of the denial.) Good clean American fun. Soccer balls sewn by blinded six-year old boys in Pakistan and sold in American sporting goods outlets. Torture talked about as a a sporting activity. Half a million dead children, killed in a true spirit of bipartisanship (and under a Democratic administration.)</p>
<p>Hey, I just noticed a suspicious absence of any post election comments by “xiggi”. I usually enjoy the fodder he adds to some of these entertaining discussions. :)</p>
<p>There was a point raised here that I do think help make the change. The average citizen simply does not equate torture as an American value. To have this administration try and convience the American public that torture was OK,I think felt wrong with most Americans. </p>
<p>There are some things we just don’t do, even if it might be justified. Never in all our history have we tried to make torture part of policy. I know it went on, but it simply is not a part of American Values. The bad guys did it. That’s often what separated us from them. </p>
<p>That’s what we all were taught growing up, it’s what gives us a sense of superiority in the world. We were always going to do the right thing not the quickest thing. Our war movies always had us outwitting the japanese or german pow with our wits. We were always smarter than the ememy so we didn’t have to stoop to physical torture. At least that was the case as I grew up. </p>
<p>Now we have “contractors” come in and handle the interogations. If they kill the prisoner, they leave without anybody being able to hold them. In my mind, I flash back to movies like the Great Escape, Battle of the Bludge and others where the “contractors” were the SS. They came did as they please and the regular soldier could do nothing about what the SS did. </p>
<p>When we started letting “contractors” handle this part of the conflict. Something switched off for alot of Americans. It was always the other guy that did this type of stuff, not us. When they killed an Iraqi general by suffocating him in a sleeping bag early on in the war and then just left without being responsible to anybody of our regular army it bothered me. </p>
<p>I hate that our ememy does what they do, but I hate even more that we’ve allowed these “contractors” to do more. The ememy I can understand, it’s the ememy. The contractors are our own version of the SS, and that is simply not part of my American values system. I would guess that’s it’s not part of a majority of people as well. Thus another reason for the change.</p>
but I miss him, too.</p>