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Republican: Sodomy is not torture [VIDEO]

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 11:32 AM on October 15, 2006.


Chris Shays, the bell tolls for thee...
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At a debate on Wednesday Republican Chris Shays calmly stood up and said (video, right):

"Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture... It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from (Maryland) who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked... And they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture."
The irony is that this was in response to the question of what American can do to restore our "moral image" in the world.

Granted, whether Shays calls this torture, or whether he goes the Limbaugh route and characterizes it as one big sex-related frat prank, is not going to shift the debate over America's moral image today, tomorrow, or anytime soon.

But refusing to label Abu Ghraib torture is part of a mechanism that not only soils our moral image, but ensures that it remains soiled for years to come.

He refuses to label Abu Ghraib torture because he just voted in favor of "reinterpreting" the Geneva Conventions (and to retroactively shield the administration from war crimes). In other words, calling it torture would necessarily put the Abu Ghraib behaviors beyond the realm of this new interpretation he favors. Of course, refusing to call it torture, and thus placing it outside acceptable practices allowed by international law, also means that these weapons remain in the arsenal of those who wish to harm our soldiers.

So here, below, is how Shays answered the question over our moral image in the world. He said that everything below should not be outlawed and explicitly removed from behaviors deemed acceptable...

The Taguba report characterizes the behavior of Americans at Abu Ghraib as: "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses."

Those abuses include:
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
The Red Cross not only indicated that detainee treatment appeared to be systemic, but also that what they witnessed was "tantamount to torture." And that's just what they were permitted to witness.

Digg!

Tagged as: gop, torture

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.


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The Product of a SICK mind
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Abushite on Oct 13, 2006 4:13 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This person should be arrested as an absolute pervert

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» Let Shay & Bush experience it!!!! Posted by: alternetleslie
Had it happened in the US
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Lizmv on Oct 13, 2006 4:35 PM   
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to a citizen, the perpetrators would have been charged with crimes and set to prison. I wonder how Chris Shays would have defined it had it been his wife.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Here's the litmus test
[Report this comment]
Posted by: handwaver on Oct 13, 2006 4:38 PM   
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If you substitute American young men and women for the detainees, would that be torture? Picture our sons and daughters, lover, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, friends etc.....piled up in that sick, twisted mound of bodies, with hoods on and wires attached...beatings, broom handles and snarling dogs...and the thousand indignities we didn't see....Show that to America and see how fast those people would be nuked!
Not torture? I know the Repugs are quite comfortable with lurid sex scandals, so that might be the lens through they see these atrocities..but, Hey, Dobson, Perkins et.al.!! Wake the fuck up!

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Chris Shays
[Report this comment]
Posted by: AndreaN on Oct 13, 2006 8:19 PM   
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..has always struck me as a little light on his feet, so perhaps the lady doth protest too much.

I'm kinda hard-boiled, but those descriptions of what the detainees were subjected to made me cry. What have we become?

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So, eventually in America
[Report this comment]
Posted by: MadMom2 on Oct 14, 2006 1:08 AM   
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...sodomy will be illegal for all citizens with the exception of members of Congress and the military. Hmmm.

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» RE: So, eventually in America Posted by: Benjaminsjw
Even if it were not "torture" it is still RAPE!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: JoshuaLudd on Oct 14, 2006 11:21 AM   
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Now correct me if I am wrong.... but isn't forcible rape considered torture? I know it is a war crime.

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This is only the spark that lead to the end.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: solarjin on Oct 15, 2006 9:43 AM   
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What's worse, is this guy was in a room where anyone could have been outraged by his ignorant statement and immediately confronted him... But we live in America, only our government can make confrontations, and only if we don't know about it.

No body says anything at the moment when these ugly perverted patriarchs show their true face. No body listens. And then we, the concerned ones are left to have these hatefull and misleading words echo in our heads.

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Chemical Light Stick of GOP Enlightenment
[Report this comment]
Posted by: ark on Oct 16, 2006 3:04 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just in time for the holidays!

The Senate Republican Conference is offering at their gift store, for a limited time:

The Official Abu Ghraib Interrogators' Model
Chemical Light Stick of GOP Enlightenment ®

for all of your GOP family and friends, whose minds still reside in the darkness...

Content warning on the link-not aiming to please.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» Here's the linl Posted by: ark
Isn't it Ironic?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: ark on Oct 16, 2006 3:11 AM   
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That many Republicans believe it would threaten western civilization if the US were to legitimise two guys getting married, and then gleefully play stable the pony in the back forty corral, but forced nonconsensual sodomy with a blunt instrument as an interrogation methodology is okey-dokey?

What kind of sexual deviants are drawn to the GOP anyway? Don't ask, they don't want to tell...

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I cant believe it.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: andrushka on Oct 16, 2006 5:26 AM   
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Are all GOP members of Congress that SICK? Where are American values, blah blah blah? It is disgusting.

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The only logical response
[Report this comment]
Posted by: helenwheels on Oct 16, 2006 9:16 AM   
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Is like what the posters upthread said: If it's not torture, why doen't Shay volunteer to be the subject of even ONE of these "uncomfortable" "Frat pranks"? Or Limpballs? I'm sure these guys live luxurious lifestyles. They would probably consider it torture to forego their nightly martini. Can you imagine the horror if they were stripped naked, put in a pile of others (preferably bushco) and attacked by dogs, menaced by lightbulbs and broomsticks?

Yeah. That would change their tunes indeed. For now, I guess I can only hope that someday they will all be called to task for the horrors unleashed on the Iraqi people in our name.

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So Sick
[Report this comment]
Posted by: the islander on Oct 16, 2006 9:28 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Republicans are so sick. Nothing can be any sicker than everything they do. It has to reach a turning point. I'm calling for a divine intervention, something that lets me know there 'really is' a God.

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crock
[Report this comment]
Posted by: ddsharper on Oct 16, 2006 1:33 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
America is really good at renaming its wrong and showing its lack of empathy. In the 1700s and 1800s they said slavery wasn't that bad, that the slaves were happy and the masters fair: all this despite rape, torture, murder and the breaking up of families. America carried out atrocities in viet nam, including poisoning their own troops and attempting to deny and cover it up. America has an entrenched history of being puritans without a conscience and a track record of cover-ups. THAT is America and why its citizens are on Prozac and drink like the dickens. Those who lack empathy and those who refuse being accountable stand in positions of leadership and should be voted out or forced out by a public demand. Unfortunately, they are drawn from the populous that tolerates the bull. Where, I ask, are the real statesmen who can at least sound convincing with slinging the bull. These baby boomers are slugs, pathetic idiots, greedy, devoid of intelligence-smarts, they have-intelligence and knowledge of history, El zippo. They couldn't buy a clue if you gave them a dollar and threw them into clue river. America is already in danger due to their debacles, the massive hypocrisy and self righteous stampeding of the globe as so-called might/right/God on our side imperialists. No honesty, just condescending government idiots telling the really smart people what they are seeing is not what they are seeing. This was pathetic, a poor job of giving excuses and thoroughly sickening (the guy wore a Yamaka on his head as if pretended piety would give him credibility- would it be torture to ram a stick up his butt? Not according to his rhetoric. I am afraid its going to get worse.

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poe
[Report this comment]
Posted by: janiepoe on Oct 17, 2006 3:59 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
this man is insane to state that sodomy is not torture!EVIL! PURE EVIL!!any human involved with torture or voted to make torture legal or excuse torture, are sick!sick!sick! WEBSTERS DICTIONARY::the conflicting of servere pain,as to FORCE information or confession, any severe physical or mental pain or a cause of it!TORTUOUS; full of twists and turns,not straight forward;devious or deceitful! now to explain the torment:GREAT PAIN,PHYSICAL OR MENTAL;AGONY,A SOURCE OF PAIN,ANXIETY,OR ANNOYANCE, TO MAKE SUFFER GREATLY IN BODY OR MIND.

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» RE: poe Posted by: patriotswrath
It's good that Bush and friends are commited to keeping me safe.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: patriotswrath on Oct 20, 2006 9:51 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Even better these are the same people that need Habeas Corpus eradicated to keep you safe. The same people that need the ability to spirit American Citizens off to prisons around the world. But the good news is you won't be tortured.


As they're pounding you in the a** against your will, just remember it's only a friendly chat.

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