Well over a year ago the United States Supreme Court ruled that the USA must adhere to the rules set forth in the Geneva Conference regarding the treatment of prisoners held by the CIA in various prisons around the world.  Torturing as we have been practicing was no longer going to be allowed. 

            The Bush administration, last week finally issued an executive order preventing the use of torture in interrogations. We now are no longer allowed to mutilate people with blow torches or use any of the usual standby methods of physical torture we have favored. However, the Bush/Cheney people have developed new methods called “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

            One of the new favorites is the use of “waterboarding”, a method of tying someone to a board with their feet higher than their head and then pouring water over their face with sufficient force to cause them to believe they are drowning until they quickly panic and plead for mercy while agreeing to confess to anything.  Another favorite technique is to force someone to stand in a cold room and occasionally pour ice water over them.  Then still another of our, “enhanced interrogation” methods is to chain a victims ankle to the floor, not allowing them to sit or lie down for several days.  Another favorite; is to completely deprive a person of sleep, keeping them awake in a number of despicable ways, including blasting them with loud foreign music sometime even for days.

            How this country has sunk so low as to encourage such tactics only our “Decider” knows.

            That we tolerate the kinds of arrogant bullying that permeate most of our foreign policies is something history will carefully document.  On the world stage today we are far down on the list of civilized nations. In many cases our behavior is more typical of the criminally insane than to that of a so-called Christian nation.

            Hopefully, with a new administration, we can in the coming years, restore some of the world’s respect we used to enjoy..