What has America become?

THE NORMALIZATION OF HORROR
By Ted Rall, Tuesday, January 11, 2005, 7:59PM, Yahoo News
American Gulags Become Permanent

NEW YORK--A new documentary, "Hitler's Hit Parade," runs 76 minutes without narration. Comprised entirely of archival footage, the film prompts its reviewers to remark upon Hannah Arendt's famous observation about the banality of evil. German troops subjugated Europe and shoved millions of people into ovens; German civilians went to the movies, attended concerts, and gossiped about their neighbors. People lived mundane, normal lives while their government carried out unspeakable monstrosities.

Sound familiar?

As Congress prepared to rubberstamp the nomination of torture aficionado Alberto Gonzales as the nation's chief prosecutor, the Washington Post broke news that would have torn a saner nation apart. The Bush Administration, the paper reported January 2, is no longer planning to keep hundreds of Muslim prisoners currently rotting away in U.S. concentration camps at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram merely "indefinitely.” The Defense Department and CIA are now planning "a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions" for these innocents.

We're locking them up forever. Without due process.

Before gangsters like Alberto Gonzales seduced us into abandoning our values, a person was considered innocent before being proven guilty. Now we're locking people away because "the government does not have enough evidence to charge [them] in courts.” And everyone, including Democrats, is OK with this.

… Bush plans to divide U.S. concentration camp victims into two groups. One set of "lifers" will end up in U.S.-run stalags like Gitmo's new Camp 6, built to hold 200 "detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, according to defense officials.” But not to worry: Camp 6 would "allow socializing among inmates."

Others captured in the "war on terrorism" will be outsourced "to third countries willing to hold them indefinitely and without proceedings" in foreign-run gulags that pledge to make victims available for torture by American interrogators. This practice, some claim, is "an effective method of disrupting terrorist cells and persuading detainees to reveal information."

There’s more you should read at the link, but Mr. Rall concludes:

Wait a minute.

Look at what we're talking about. Consider the breezy way we Americans--Americans! --are debating the pros and cons of torture. Marvel at our moral bankruptcy. The liberal argument against torture used to be that it was wrong. Now it's that it doesn't work.

So.

Read any good books lately?

Whoa! I don’t know about you, but ever since I learned about just the concept that we were going to keep these poor bastards locked up forever, I’ve felt that America had had forever been debased by its “leaders.” We can never again claim any sort of moral leadership when we plan to put men away who were never been convicted of anything; who may have confessed to “crimes,” that were obtained using torture.

We now officially have concentration camps. I hate to think what might be next.