Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Marty's investigations were reported a year ago, going into a focus on flights to secret hideouts, with at least 14 landing points.  

The fact is that treaties on human rights prohibit these clandestine prisons and secret CIA flights. The reason no punitive action has been taken is that the Council of Europe is separate from the European Union.  

The Council was established four years after World War Two to promote democracy and the rule of law, as well as human rights, in Europe.  However, the Council of Europe has no power to punish.

Conditions at these highly secret jails included keeping prisoners naked for weeks to prohibit body movement.  They were sometimes attached to "shackling rings."  Toilets were buckets.  Masked guards would not speak to prisoners.  There were four-month isolation periods.  Cells could be extremely hot or cold.  Loud rock or rap music could keep prisoners awake and distorted verses from the Koran were also played.

These suspected terrorists have been kidnapped, placed on planes, and flown to secret prisons for these unique interrogations.  The U.S. public only hears about these secret prisons and troubling interrogations when Amnesty international and the Council of the European Union submits reports to the media.

Bush acknowledged last September that the CIA did have secret detention programs.  He announced that the CIA had moved Sheikh Mohammed and 13 other suspected terrorists to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Bush bashed Putin about the slowness of democracy taking hold in Russ at the G8 summit last week.  On the Internet website Dictionary.com unabridged terrorism is defined as:

1. The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

2. The state of fear and submission produced by terrorism.

3. A terrorist method of governing or resisting a government.

How can one define invading Iraq when that nation had never invaded or threatened to invade the United States?  

How can we objectively define the CIA kidnapping suspected terrorists, flying them to secret prisons, and subjecting them to what some would define as terror.

It is a proven psychological fact that when humans are subjected to various types of suffering they often will say most anything to stop the torment, making their confessions suspect and often worthless.  

Some candidates for the presidency claim we are safer after conducting and continuing the Iraq War.  Only time will tell, but if Muslims who still vividly recall the Christian Crusades and sometimes engage in revenge, it tragically might be possible that revenge for the Iraq War will eventually make everyone wish it had never happened.

Diplomacy could possibly heal the wounds of the Iraq War.