Why did we start torturing people?

[Th1onein]

I think we did it because the Bush administration needed "evidence" that Iraq had WMD, that they were planning to attack us. This is how they placed the intelligence to support the policy that they talked about in the Downing Street Minutes.

[baldguy]

1. Fear

Created by the GOP

[Mist]

2. * likes kinky sadistic photos--Rummy obliged. nt

[dusmcj]

3. umm, if you think we didn't earlier, check out some history

The US has been supporting murderous dictators ever since it became am international power in the mid 1800's. If the words Allende, FMLN, Somoza, Atlacatl, Savimbi, 316 battalion and the like don't mean anything to you, spend some quality time with wikipedia or google. American 'advisors' have been at the side of a variety of the world's torture crowd for decades. Hell, the electroshock equipment they use was manufactured here.

[bryant69]

4. I don't know

I think in part it was that they placed themselves above the law or out side the law - I'm talking about the CIA or the guards at Abu Ghraib. If you are told that you don't have to play by the rules, odds are you aren't going to play bh the rules. Rules suck.

Bush placed our troops and the CIA in a moral wasteland and so one shouldn't be surprised that some took advantage of that fact.

OF course there's a distinction between abuse committed and the rationale for such abuse.

Bryant
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