BY JAMES NIMMO

There has been much discussion recently of the impending public disclosure of the Senate Intelligence Committee report detailing the alleged illegal use of torture by the CIA and other even more secret sections of our tax-funded government.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has come out of his war cave to declare once again that waterboarding is not torture and is legal. He also muttered under his breath that “moral” is a four-letter word.

This inhumane action has taken place under administrations of both parties.

A digest version of the committee report – California Sen. Diane Feinstein is chair – has been leaked and is available at this link. It reveals an active and knowing suborning of the facts and evidence to maintain inhumane actions against uncharged detainees in American-controlled facilities and foreign locations as well.

I’ve read that to compare a group of people or actions as being “like the Nazis” is simplistic and indicates a lack of perspective from the one making the comparison. I used to wonder how the SS, Fascists, Nazi –what have you – could have got their foot in the door in the 1920s.

Now I know, and I don’t think I’m being simplistic.

I’ve had a nagging suspicion that 9/11 was allowed to happen if not actively planned in order to continue the high budget demands of the American war/banking industry. As Napoleon allegedly said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” This dictum is a two-way street.

America spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined. This is NOT a defense budget to protect the country from aggression. Our presidents frequently brag on the strength of the American military.

If defense were the true purpose of the large budget, wouldn’t it make a better use of tax-money to have a defense budget that was at parity with the rest of the leading countries?

It’s rather an offensive budget to wage war on the rest of the world, to make the world bend to corporate/military supremacy demands.

Why do our elected officials think that returning to feudal atrocities is acceptable?

Jon Stewart, host of the Daily Show and who is unafraid to read between the lines of official media, said it best recently referring to reports of the leaked Senate report on CIA use of torture [paraphrasing]: The U.S. is a deeply moral country – after the fact, when the instigators get caught.

Sen. Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, denounced the revelations in the new report, saying, “This is not what Americans do.”

Only, we did do it.

“Like with your internment camps, or your, what do you call it, slavery, America has a history of doing a tremendous amount of stuff that we ‘don’t do.’ We are a moral people … in hindsight,” Stewart said.

– James Nimmo lives in Oklahoma City and is a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer