Schmidt Happens

London: The Sunday Times - Review reports: Legalised brutality — the new face of America

"It is to America’s credit that it has vented this material. But it is also true that the evidence now shows that 9/11 has indeed changed America — into a country where brutal treatment of detainees is now legal. And it has all been done with legal cover and political deflection. Last Thursday, not a single major conservative website even mentioned the Schmidt report at all. Better to look away.

This is what the new world of terror can do to a country dedicated to human dignity and liberty. When President George W Bush said, after Abu Ghraib, that those images did not represent America, he sadly mis-spoke. Thanks to his own decisions legalising torture for “military necessity”, those images do indeed define part of Bush’s new America. Deep in the cages of Guantanamo Bay lies that saddening, sobering truth."

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(Hat tip to Watching America)