I am not going to have a lot of spare time this week, so blogging will be very light. I can't, however, ignore the fact that I'm waking up this morning to a former US President, who in my opinion did so much to make the world a more dangerous place, justifiying the use of torture.
He comes from a party who spent an enormous amount of time and energy poring through civil law suits until they found a piece of ammunition in Bill Clinton's private life to use against him. I remember watching with bemused horror as I watched the farcical process of impeachment, which was doomed to failure, that they enacted.
Yet that same party will turn a blind eye when one of their number unashamedly flouts the bounds of decency and claims that it saves lives. This from the man who ordered the campaign which claimed the lives of thousands of Iraqi civilians and failed to act to curb Israel from its persecution of the Palestinians. The images of homeless and injured children on our televisions do much more to put US and British lives at risk.
I don't believe torture is ever acceptable, whatever the circumstances, and waterboarding, simulating drowning, is most definitely torture. It sickens me that its use can be justified by someone who led the land of the free.
I really think Bush should face some sort of judicial process because of his actions. I have absolutely no confidence that that will ever happen.
And let's just remember that a sizable part of the group of Republicans elected to Congress last week have even more skewed priorities than those in 1994. These people don't even think their own people should have healthcare. It shows how important an Obama victory in 2012 is.
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