Guest: Larry Siems, Director of Freedom to Write and International Programs of the PEN Center, talks about his latest book, The Torture Report: What the Documents Say About America’s Post-9/11 Torture Program, as well as the "Reckoning With Torture" Film project.
Why do we as a nation torture? Perhaps its the same reason we as a nation killed two million Vietnamese, or a million Iraqis. We try not to pay much attention, like avoiding a wounded dog on the highway. Take notice and you have to stop and try to help.
Our media helps us drive by, offering rationales for invasions, tortures, and mass murders. Our president helps too, by talking about justice and change while serving the nation's killing machine.
And perhaps the efficacy of torture isn't the point, despite all the studies that have found that it to be useless for gathering intelligence information. Our guest, Larry Siems, reminded us that torture is illegal, both in the United States and the rest of the world. Our country thus becomes a lawless state, one that uses war crimes to dominate other nations.
It is no wonder that US citizens don't want to think about torture. We are all "good Germans" until the empire falls.
