🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Orv0i.1040$mR2.1016@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net>,
 "bat" <bat@bats.com> wrote:

> Everybody can see that now with all new security measures, trillions 
> of dollars spent and hundred of thousands people killed, we were able 
> to catch many real terrorists, all of whom were tried in court of law 
> with evidence, and convicted; including, of course, all the 
> perpetrators of 9/11

What proportion of the people in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (not to 
mention the secret torture prisons in Eastern Europe, Egypt and 
elsewhere) were *properly* convicted of anything? How many convictions 
compared to the number held without charge whom we will eventually have 
to release to nurse their resentment against our nation? What was the 
cost to those who were imprisoned but never convicted of anything? What 
has been the cost to the United States in terms of individual liberty, 
global prestige and world leadership?

You know that last guy who confessed to practically every act of 
terrorism back to the Kennedy assassination? Personally, I don't have 
any confidence at all in his "confession". Do you? Suffering through 
years of veritable incommunicado confinement, filth and mistreatment, 
isolated from family and the rest of the world, surrounded by people 
under no obligation to restrain their hatred of me, I might confess to 
anything-- just like him. This tendency toward false confession would 
be especially true if I knew I was innocent and wanted nothing more 
than to end my suffering swiftly.

So might you too, and any other thinking person sufficiently privileged 
to call themself human.