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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: TimF who wrote (28962)9/21/2006 4:16:52 PM
From: GST  Read Replies (1) of 541141
 
Try bringing people to Boston (pick your favorite US city) and torturing them -- it may be purely symbolic, but it is no accident that we reserved space in secret locations in other countries to torture people -- we don't like to think that there are people in America being held prisoner and being tortured right here at home day after day. For psychological and political reasons it seems somewhat easier if the torture is taking place elsewhere. Secret prison are best for torture, but a well-known torture chamber outside the US would still be preferred over torturing our prisoners right here at home.

Torture at home is likely to draw unwanted attention from those who oppose torture. It also gets stickier to have these people in the US when it turns out that 90% of the people we kidnap from other countries have done nothing wrong and are set free. When we torture people outside of the US it is easier to pretend it is not really happening. If we were to grab people off the street in foreign countries and bring them to the US and lock them in the basement of the White House (for example), and then torture them (sometimes to death), it would too ghastly for US public opinion. The act of torture and the location of torture are connected issues. Denial is more effective when things are kept out of sight -- out of sight, out of mind.
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