The Nappy Cat Chronicles

John Cole:

This is not about the terrorists, it is about us. Decent nations don’t torture, they don’t threaten to rape the children of prisoners, they don’t stage mock executions, they don’t waterboard people 200 times in one month. No matter what the stakes.

Let’s not kid ourselves. There’s no such thing as a “decent nation.” I fancy myself a “decent person” but I would kill someone if I thought that my families’ lives depended on it. If faced with the likes of a home-invasion robbery, many “decent people” would do the same. But when one is commissioned to commit violence by his or her nation, he or she cannot help but to do so in absurd and extreme ways.

What is the nation? Its people? Its GDP? Its president? You? Me? The question does not have a single answer so everything must be protected. And if the continued existence of everything depends upon what you do with the hooded man right now, this very second, you’re going to destroy him until he tells you what you want to hear.