Slow News

Last week the LA Times, the Washington Post, and Reuters all reported on the removal of the CIA's top counter-terrorism official, Robert Grenier. None of them got the story right, probably as a result of excessive stenographitis. Last Sunday the London Times helpfully set things straight: Grenier was fired for opposing the use of torture. There is, btw, subsequent to it almost nothing but the Times story available on the net...

Since the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in 2004 it seems Americans have been successfully de-sensitized to the routine use of torture by the criminal gang that runs our government. Yet the Europeans remain interested, to the point of considering questioning – or asking to question – senior Bush officials. And a UN investigation now says that the US is torturing prisoners at Guantanamo, and recommends that the facility be closed. Like it or not, news about such things will continue to dribble out so long as the torture regime remains in place.

Americans should sit up and take notice if for no other reason than because if we allow our putative leaders to act this way towards others overseas it is only a matter of time before they decide they'll act in exactly the same way towards us here at home.