False Equivalence, Revisited.

On C&L, this afternoon, Amato's crew dips their ladle into the bubbling cauldron of cess that is cable "news," and comes up with an exchange between MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell and Darth Cheney's daughter Liz Cheney (is she the lesbian? I fergit...W). Cheney, who is a lightweight--no, a light-featherweight--intellect, conflates the participation by USer troops' a military training program, explicitly DESIGNED by war-planners to prepare the troops to face torture without weakening--with the application of these "enhanced interrogation methods" against supposed, or accused, or believed-jihadist detainees, and implies that therefore this ISN'T really torture because.... errrr, ummmm, yanoooo, if we call that torture, then we must face the accusation that we we tortured our own troops...

Take my word. That's what she says. Not in so many words, but in essence...She doesn't KNOW she said it. But that's what she said. It is...

You REALLY Don't Have To WATCH! The STOOPIT! IT HURTS!!!!ITHURTS!!!!! OMIGAWDITHURTS!!!!!!!!!!



This argument, you now see, is the epitome of dim-witted speciousness; or the apotheosis of utterly cynical, intellectual and historical dishonesty. No one can be this stupid and be allowed to drive.

See, here's the point: Soldiers were "trained" with "SERE" "techniques" to prepare them to face TORTURE their bosses thought they'd face on--or after-- the battlefield!

SERE soldiers were subjected to treatments the Brass expected pow's to have to endure. They assumed that our enemies would do to our captives what we would do to theirs, and the SERE training arose from that tactical decision. "We" knew what to expect: US Marines were (often fatally) "waterboarding" Filipino insurgents during the so-called "Spanish-American War" a Century and a bit ago. USer troops went through SERE training to harden them to the TORTURE their bosses anticipated they'd face. SERE replicated tortures the USer military establishment had reason to believe might be inflicted on USer troops by people who knew as much about torture as they did.

Get it, now?

Chuy!