I don’t for a moment believe any of the rhetoric (moral or pretend practical) from all the various bloviators accompanying or preceding today’s disclosure of memos regarding CIA interrogation techniques. Nor do I believe the predictable boilerplate on the subject from Presidential adviser David Axelrod, as reported by Politico’s Mike Allen: “It was a weighty decision,” Axelrod said. “As with so many issues, there are competing points of view that flow from very genuine interests and concerns that are to be respected. And then the president has to synthesize all of it and make a decision that’s in the broad national interest. He’s been thinking about this for four weeks, really.”
Really? All of four weeks. What an intellectual!
Of course what he has been thinking about, if anything, is politics, because this was, no matter what anyone says or (again) pretends to say, a purely political decision, because here is the truth about torture decisions:
Everyone (except a sadist) abhors torturing, but no one knows what they would do in an inidividual situation until they are confronted by it – and those situations are always changing. That includes Barack Obama, George Bush, you, me and Ariana Huffington. [Ariana Huffington – why did that name come up regarding torture?-ed. Free association?] So what we are dealing with in the release of these memos is pure political smear. And Obama knew it. That’s why he delayed for those four weeks of deep cogitation referred to by Agent Axelrod of the DPA (Democratic Party Apparat). Meanwhile, regarding those torture decisions I never expect to have to make and hope I won’t, I would bow to my main man Jeremy Bentham who wrote of the “greatest good for the greatest number.” The old “utilitarian” was an even deeper thinker than David Axelrod or Barack Obama. [No. That’s impossible!-ed.]
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