Torture Report Released Today

      A report detailing Americas torture of detainees~first ordered by ex-vice president Dick Cheney-makes me increasingly determined to never to pay more taxes than absolutely necessary to the... assholes...who run our government. Money is power to them and the only recourse is to deny them any of mine. Fortunately I have maintained a modest standard of living for most of my life, so in monetary terms I have not been complicit with the utter corruption and sub standard thinking of politicians and many in corporate power. None of them represent me. That is, I would never have spent trillions on war while allowing our infrastructure, health care system, education system and other more worthwhile causes to decline for lack of resources. The choices those people are making-weapons and vengeance and torture-are equating us with those over whom we claim moral superiority, and it has become big business to promote and sustain the status quo. But do not call me naive. I am quite familiar with the dark side of people.
    To me, it always comes down to individual choice, and the CIA guys who were literally in tears as they witnessed the sadistic things they were doing should have had the courage- the Soul- to walk away from a job that so compromised their own and Americas dignity; when you ignore what is right and good you become the enemy you fear and despise, which makes rationalization of your actions- both at the time you  and in hindsight- inadequate.
     As for ISIS retaliating for the release of the report, two thoughts: 1) They already claim God as their main reason for killing, so details of American abuses can simply reinforce their resolve.2) If America Is ultimately held accountable for what it has done...so what? Isn't that what we teach our children?
     POSTSCRIPT:  The immediate response of ISIS to the torture report was to release a new video of themselves throwing a gay man off of a roof and then stoning him to death. So that's the mentality of the guys we are dealing with..( A good book detailing the rise of the group is "Black Flags- The Rise of ISIS" by Joby Warrick. It tells the long history of the present predicament, and the convoluted and complicated situation in the middle east, never mind the simplistic sound bites this nation prefers.) Despite American mistakes I still assume that we were torturing people with good intentions-if such a paradoxical thing is possible-and I suppose in their minds the ISIS guys genuinely believe they are right in trying to create a Islamic state. The profound differences reside in the 'ideals' of Islamic extremism and the ideals of democracy. Even our slave owning founding fathers debated the hypocrisy of the "all men are created equal" part and we eventually lost 500,000 mostly young men trying to achieve the ideals in our constitution.