The IG Report is not for the faint of heart. The details of abuse are so graphic and brutal that it’s hard to read in places. But Glenn is right — everyone should read it (or at least the key parts). People should see precisely what happened. The highlights include: (1) mock executions; (2) threatened rape of family members; (3) threatened murder of children; (4) kicking and beating a detainee with a metal flashlight to death; (5) threatening naked hooded detainees with power drills; (6) blowing cigar smoke in detainees’ faces until they got sick; (7) waterboarding with massive volumes of water far beyond what OLC authorized (to make it “poignant”); (8) stress positions that nearly caused shoulder dislocations; (9) scraping detainees with stiff brushes; (10) choking a detainee with one’s bare hands until they nearly pass out; (11) subjecting detainees to extremely cold temperatures and water dousing; (12) “hard takedowns” (sometimes in diapers); and (13) beating detainees with butts of rifles (followed by kicking them). It’s easy to let your mind skim over these. But if you stop and linger over a couple of them — and really take the time to reflect on the individual pain and fear that must have been involved — it makes you sick to your stomach. These acts must be punished.
publius | Obsidian Wings (via retropolitics)
this is not my america. i want my america back.
(via abbyjean)
