No real argument. But we also need to remember the banality of torture. We do not want to glamorize it or build it up larger than life. Torture is hardly unimaginable or epic in scale.

Appreciate your whole comment. Re the above, was thinking of Scott Peck’s book, People of the Lie. He says EVIL is laziness — laziness, to the nth degree. In terms of narcissism, and emotional inconvenience. Mark Twain once wrote something about how an adult frets more about a tear in his own trousers, than an illness of his own child. Ego is such a strong motivator. Altruism, not so much, in most.

People have a stereotype of who they think they are which is benign and socially appropriate, if not heroic, but when they are tested, and their ego is running the show in terms of impression management uber alles or the baser instincts like abuse of power and down-right sadism, and they are so out of touch with true empathy and their own sense of self, independent pathology takes over, or, in other cases, authoritarian following group think is a slippery slope, easier to go along without challenge in the short run. Amazing the ripple effect of collusion in evil. Of denial and minimization and authoritarian following. If you don’t stop it, like an addiction, it escalates. Like an addiction? Well, what am I saying? I am talking about pathology and addiction. Addiction overrides moral considerations and escalates steadily. Co-addiction enables it. Co-addiction is even more baffling and insidious! The coaddict is reactive, not proactive. The addict is proactively evil. The coaddict is passive and ineffective, despite appropriate-sounding shallow posturing.

On the contrary, it is grubby. Squalid. Mean-sprited, small-minded. Nasty. Perverted. It is what little bullies do to small animals and younger, smaller playmates. It is what rapists and child molesters do. It is contemptible.

This is the real reason for the desperate call for secrecy. It’s not that the perpetrators really fear for their lives if their faces are shown. It’s that they fear the reaction of their relatives, neighbors, employers, and co-workers. They have done nasty, mean things and are more familiar with drains, damp, body fluids, pain and filth than healthy folk ever are. They are yicky. They are contaminated. They don’t want anyone else to know.

People can stand almost anything but contempt. Contempt is hatred without respect or pity, hatred that is no longer personal but uniform and social.

The torturers and their confederates are more aware of this than we are. As human animals, they know, instinctively, that even those that once condoned the actions will disavow the actors once the sheer squalidness of the conduct is revealed. No one will leave children alone with with someone who has crushed a 7-year-old’s testicles–no one really believes he did it because he was ordered to. No wants to discuss the weather over coffee in the break room with someone they’ve seen drowning hooded, half-starved, bound and naked men. That’s just sick. No one lends money to people like that. No one hires them. Even spouses and parents can’t help wondering about them.

There’s a rough justice in human nature.

Part of putting a stop to that sort of thing for good is owning up and paying the costs.

That.

Think about it–resettlement as stimulus. Your company needs a bailout? Your town lost the Chevy Blazer assembly plant? How many detainees can we put ya’ down for?

We could even have a sort of cap and trade program. These states and towns that don’t want “them” released “here” could pay other, braver states and municipalities to do their duty for them. The program could even be revenue neutral!

In all seriousnmess, I say “duty”, because duty it is. Foisting detainees off on other foreign shores for money is just another evasion of responsibility. Any detainee that is cleared or can’t be tried and still wants to stay here should get to. They should get damages as well. None of them–even those that might actually be guilty of something–were ever held for anything but domestic political advantage. Part of putting a stop to that sort of thing for good is owning up and paying the costs. Americans hate costs and remember what causes them.

In the end, it’s the destruction of reality, the inverse of William Blake’s “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower…”

It’s the destruction of the universe inside a single body and skull.

Our high command is acting like the bishops who lent cronyism protection to the priests who molested children. And Obama is a new bishop, so to speak, he has not been compromised by this insanity. So why is he compromising himself now. So codependent of him.

You nailed it!