A Government of War Criminals - A Press of Agents Provocateurs - A Bureaucracy of Foreign Spies

Just reading ordinary press reports on the state of government and the press in Washington is like stepping into Orwell's 1984.

The Attorney General authorizes torture, the president orders it with weasel words, and the press acquiesces, mostly not even bothering with even a feeble protest. Colin Powell's objections to tossing the Geneva Conventions in the waste basket (because he knew that doing so opened US soldiers to being tortured with impunity by our foes) were brushed aside by comfortable liars-- I mean lawyers-- in cushy Washington offices. When the practice of torture becomes incontrovertibly public via pictures from Abu Ghraib, they punish a few privates and corporals. I guess the order by a federal judge that more Abu Ghraib photos and videos be released is bad news for . . . privates and corporals. The worst thing is that the American public knew all this, and they reelected the team responsible, which makes us all complicit in torture; it is national policy approved in a national referendum.