Nov. 14, 2005 - 23:21 MST

SEEMS TO ME

Not sure about anything tonight other than the fact that the grass is white and the streets and sidewalks are wet. Appropriate for this time of year I suppose, but after such a nice long run of good weather what blew in from Montana this afternoon while we were in Ace Hardware and drenched us as we came out was a blow to this snow-bird.

In today's Rocky Mountain News is an article by Dan Thomasson of Scripps Howard. It is a full column, but I am only quoting the last two paragraphs. Herewith:

"One would be naive not to expect random violations of the rules, including the use of extreme physical coercion, by our own inquisitiors in the heat of battle." But these practices should be rare exceptions and certainly not an official albeit clandestine policy."

"No one is better qualified than McCain to drive this home. His years in a North Vietnam prison were a nightmare only the strongest constitution and spirit could have surived. If we ever expect to free our own forces from the fear of that experience, we should clean up our own act. THE PRESIDENT MUST TAKE THE LEAD WITHOUT QUALIFICATION"

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Exercising my right of free expression and opinion tonight, I hold forth.

Seems to be the mindset of those who hold prisoners of war, or in the present case "suspected terrorists," that the prisons, camps or whatever are places for punishment to be rendered - - - even to the innocent.

Still alive are victims of the Holocaust, our veterans who saw the grim evidence of mistreatment of the helpless to the extreme. Our own veterans who were prisoners of war underwent mistreatment to the max also. There are grim reminders of abuse from the fields of Korea, and many instances of torture and mistreatment by young folks like McCain. Sutherland who possibly still lives in Boulder, Colorado come to mind right off hand. The prisons and camps of the Western Pacific during World War Two were hell-holes for our folks imprisoned there. I think the movie Bridge Over The River Kwai is fictional, but probably a bit cleaned up from the reality of things that happened there.

So many folks I have talked to think torture of citizens of other countries is perfectly alright, because "it is them," you know and "look what they did." Those folks don't seem to care either that many of these people are innocent -- they are "them" and due no courtesy.

So the folks of our administration who are pushing to allow the CIA to torture people and keep prison camps overseas, are setting us up to be victims of torture ourselves down the line a bit. Oh, something will be cooked up -- suspected terrorist -- for now will probably do. But when comes in the national drivers ID license, with the black magnetic strip on the back - - - - Katie Bar The Door. Especially when they make sure the political party and religion of the person is specified on that strip.

Paranoid, Hell, I fear for the worst and it looks as if that is what is going to happen if there aren't enough wise men in the Senate to prevent much of the twisted planning now going on.

Of course the defense will probably be that the perpetrators were "misunderstood." SEEMS TO ME

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