Yeah, the choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation is a slap in the face of the GLBT community, there is no doubt, but it is a distraction. It is not that the Dog does not know all of the arguments for not giving this charming bigot a platform and tacit approval of his message of intolerance and restrictions on woman’s reproductive rights, he does and he supports them. It is just that there are more important issues out there, ones that affect every single citizen, regardless of their sex or sexuality.

The main one that you will see the Dog talking about again and again is the War Crimes of the criminal Bush administration. State sanctioned torture is the malignant melanoma of democracy. The choice of a fast moving cancer as analogy is a very specific one. Like cancer torture almost always starts unnoticed, and the damage it does is total to the areas of the body politic that it infects. Does that sound too strong? Well stick with the Dog for a little bit and we’ll see.

Many of the problems that our species face come down to the dehumanization of those that do not think as we do. Every army in the world gives derogatory names to their opponents, Gooks, Rag Heads, Gomers, Krauts, Nips, Imperialists, Running Dogs, all of these are used to make it easier to do what war is all about, killing those that oppose you until they will no longer do so. Without this dehumanization who knows how many of the soldiers would find it hard to fight and kill?

In war, horrible things happen. There is no war in history that did not have atrocities, it is a consequence of violent action that some will take to it and embrace it beyond the minimum needs of the situation. In every war things get out of control and inhumane things are done. In the 20th Century we decided that if these things happen, regardless of the side that wins, those that pruputrate these atrocities must be punished. There is no statue of limitation on War Crimes for this very reason. Regardless of your reasons, no matter what the outcome, torture, a War Crime, is never considered acceptable.

That was true until this criminal administration. That the criminal Bush and his henchmen have perpetrated legions of crimes is really not under dispute. Even this week we have seen the Vice President claim that he thought that it was not only legal but perfectly acceptable that the United States government, with himself as part of the process, authorized water boarding.

This is cancer that the Dog is talking about. Here one of the most powerful men in the world has calmly and openly said that one of the most horrible tortures every created by man is fine, nothing remarkable. In that one sentence we have had our very humanity endangered. That smug bastard sat there and with the surety that he would never be tortured in this way, prescribed it for others, if they oppose us. While it might be comforting (to some, who are less introspective) to think that we would only reserve this type of treatment for the “bad men” it is the height of folly to think that will be the case.

We know that this government has a “you are with us or against us” mentality and a willingness to destroy any enemy at any cost. Do we all remember the outing of covert agent Valerie Plame? Given the claimed ability to of the president to declare any person, even US citizens as Enemy Combatants it is only luck that, to our knowledge, US citizens have not been tortured.

Once there is a cadre that is willing and comfortable with torture, we all become endangered. It takes a stripping of your humanity to do these things, and just because you are no longer ordered to do so does not mean you lose the will to do it. This leaves a problem at our backs. The Dog has complete confidence that President Elect Obama will not torture, but that says nothing for the administrations that will follow him. As long as those that ordered torture and those that carried it out, are left unpunished, we face the very real threat that this will happen again.

The good news is that the system of justice, while far to slow for comfort, does grind on. Last night Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI) called for further investigation of the CIA’s roll in torture. His Foreign Service Committee has released a report that details how torture was ordered by the Executive branch inside the military. He feels that it is incomplete if we do not know what the CIA did. While the Senior Senator from Michigan stopped short of calling for a special prosecutor, he is moving in that direction. It is the responsibility of the people to encourage, hell, require the government to act in this case. Sen. Levin is asking for us to push him, will we fail to do so?

If we do fail, then we will see this cancer grow. The very failure to aggressively investigate and prosecute the offenders will make it that much harder in the future. It will provide those with no morals but expediency the justification that we have done it before and no one objected, so it must be legal.

We can not allow this to happen. If we do then the next criminal administration may very well not be as restrained as the criminal Bush one. That would mean, like in Chile, the disappearing and torture of political opponents. If we take our focus off of this critical factor we may very well find that democracy dies not with a whimper, but with a scream around a wet rag stuffed down the throat of a dissident.

Below is a description of what it might be like to be water boarded. If you think that Rick fucking Warren is more important than stopping this, so be it, but be sure to read the description before you decide. The floor is yours.

Your feet are shackled, and so are your wrists. When you were lead into the room you saw that it did not have the usual table, this room had a board, and a drain in the floor. You are blindfolded by the guards and roughly forced to lie on the wet wooden board. Even though you are shackled they tie you down to the board with three ropes, one across your chest, one across your waist and one across your legs. You are now completely unable to move, your head is below the level of your feet making the blood rush to your head.

You can hear them moving around and hear a hose running, filling a bucket of water. Your heart begins to race as your mouth is forced open and a wet rag is stuffed inside. There is enough clothe that it fills your mouth, and prevents your teeth from meeting, even at the back of your mouth. You feel a person sitting next you on the board, and they put their hands on your stomach, just above your diaphragm and push down, keeping you from taking a deep breath through your nose. You sense someone else standing above your head, and then the water starts to pour over your face. Not a little, but a torrent of water, it is running up your nose, and you can not breath! Your gag reflex kicks in, but the rag in your mouth does not let you gag.

Your body begins to convulse, convinced in the most primitive of reflexes to try to do anything to get more air! You thrash but the ropes and shackles have you completely immobilized. You feel the water hitting your face, as the person on the bench presses down on your diaphragm, forcing what little air you have out, not in. You are now sure that you are going to die, that you are going to drown, not an abstract, but for real, and right now. Your chest burns with the need for more air, your eyes tear under the blindfold as you struggle to get one more breath.

You are no longer a rational human, you are now just a survival machine, ready to beg anyone, do anything to make the pain stop and get just one more breath. The water stops falling on you. You suck air in through your nose and try to suck it in through you mouth. Both bring more water along with the small amount of air you can get. You hear the hose running again and know that this is not over, it is just starting. Your heart is going like a trip hammer, and you are in a state of terror, like nothing you have ever experienced or thought of. You know if and when they ask you something, you will do or say anything, anything to prevent them from doing it again. Then the hands push on your stomach, and the water starts falling again.

You struggle, trying to hold your breath, but the gag reflex kicks in again, and again you become more animal than man as you struggle for breath your body wracked with pain and convulsively struggling to get free to breath. Finally they remove the rag and start to ask you questions. You tell them everything, anything they ask to keep them from doing it again.

After a while they stop asking questions. They tell you they have to be sure that you are not lying to them. They force the rag between your clenched teeth and it starts again. You do not know what to do or say, you do not know if you will live or die. All you do know is that you are drowning and it will go on as long as those that hold you want, even to your death.