2015-01-05 How I learned to stop worrying and love the torture, by John McNamer

Terrific!   Many thanks to John.

Note the link to his complaint submitted to the ICC, at the bottom of this posting.

 

http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/commentary-learned-stop-worrying-love-torture/

By: Kamloops This Week in Columnists, Opinion January 5, 2015

 

How I learned to stop worrying and love the torture

 

BY JOHN MCNAMER

Why has it ever even bothered me that so many people have been kidnapped and illegally rendered to CIA dark sites to be sometimes tortured to death or tortured and held for years without any legitimate legal process?

That the use of “intelligence” information obtained from torture, known to be mostly unreliable and useless, is now the norm for the supposedly civilized Western nations of the world?

That U.S. President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama reportedly sits in regular high-level meetings to examine a kill list of candidates and determines who will be the next bug splat on a video screen, then jokes about how the drones make him “really good at killing people”?

That the evolved and ongoing George W. Bush/Dick Cheney coalition of the killing has successfully established the right to unilaterally invade and occupy any weaker sovereign nation in the world — a scenario Adolf Hitler could only have hoped for in his wildest dreams — slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians in the process, without any legal repercussions whatsoever?

That the omniscient, faceless spooks — ever ready to pounce — are likely monitoring my emails, my phone conversations, my financial details and my personal life?

That these very words may be implicating me even as I type, in some yet-to-be-defined threat to national-security agencies of Big Brother?

It’s not that they are bad people. After all, they are the good guys. They are Christian capitalists, men fully entitled to reach out via drone-delivery systems or whatever and share some of the more poignant benefits of Western democracy with the unenlightened, dark-skinned masses of the world, doing so in my name, using my money.

So what if these “good guys” have dredged up and put into play almost every reprehensible desecration of civilized human behaviour known to the world — with crucifixion being a possible exception.

I realize now it doesn’t matter.

These things just have to be done. There is no particular reason. They just have to be done.

So, in the spirit of true patriotism and self-preservation, I hereby announce my complete surrender to the new realities.

It’s actually for my own good. I need to be quiet now and placidly carry on with daily routines. I’m a simple-minded country boy who doesn’t understand the complexities.

It’s just the way it is. Remembering that God and the National Security Agency do work in mysterious ways, I accept it’s all for the best, for the greater good.

And it has become quite clear my resistance has been mainly a personal problem. I readily admit I was once so confused before the reprogramming.

For example, I used to think that when a strong elected leader like der Fuhrer claimed the right to use massive military might to invade and occupy other countries at will, to assassinate and summarily execute in the name of national security, it was a bad thing that must be stopped by all the good people —  even if it took a world war to do so.

That when the Nazis randomly kidnapped certain kinds of people and rendered them to covert concentration camps to be tortured and killed or held indefinitely without legal process, it was atrocious, illegal, immoral — adding up to crimes against humanity.

That when the Chinese communists in Korea and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia used water torture as their primary warped way of dehumanizing, brainwashing and destroying suspected opponents, this was the horrifying and depraved result of godless authoritarian communist ideology, an ideology that absolutely must be stopped at all costs, even if it were to take a nuclear holocaust (yes, it was bad enough that we found it necessary to step up and prepare to destroy the world in order to save it).

That the Stalin-era, Guantanamo-type gulags and ridiculous show trials with fixed outcomes for perceived enemies of the state were despicable icons of the worst form of governance possible.

That the massive unrestrained surveillance states forced on their citizenry by the Soviet KGB and the East German Stasi were an intolerable assault on the dignity of “free” people everywhere. “Ich bin ein Berliner!”

But, that’s all in the past for me. I’m a changed man and I have seen the light. I get it now.

The resistance is gone.

What’s happening is what’s happening and it’s important to be part of team play as we go forward.

Covert rendition and torture, illegal invasion and occupation, summary executions from on high, mass surveillance of everything about everyone.

They are all good. Period. At some very deep mystical level, it is apparently all about loving thy neighbour as thyself, or it certainly wouldn’t be happening this way, would it?

As proof that I’m serious, I even have a new mantra printed on a T-shirt carefully saved in the closet for those special events demanding the utmost in political correctness: “Kill for Peace, War Forever.”

Hallelujah!

Canadian citizen and Kamloops resident John McNamer was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for service with the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. He recently filed a request to the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, asking for an investigation of Canada’s complicity in torture, which is now being actively considered by prosecutors. McNamer’s request can be found online here.