The Torture Election

Chris Floyd , Empire Burlesque
...Torture is at the very heart of the Bush presidency, the most quintessential manifestation of its governing philosophy: a "Commander-in-Chief" state, where presidential directives can override any law in the name of "national security." The use of torture demonstrates that not even the most heinous crimes -- including techniques used by Nazi sadists and KGB brutes -- are beyond the pale of the "unitary executive's" arbitrary will. On the basis of this authoritarian power -- established through a series of presidential orders and "legal" opinions by appointed lackeys -- many other crimes can be "justified": aggressive war; kidnapping and rendition; indefinite detention; secret prisons; warrantless surveillance; even the "extrajudicial killing" of people the president designates as terrorists or terrorist "suspects."...
continua / continued