URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/10/opinion/10GREG.html
This just fucking floors me. This guy is writing full of self-congratulation about how righteous he and the US have always been about not torturing -- and he doesn't see any contradiction with the fact that a puppet that we controlled was torturing people literally next door to him! Milosevic is responsible for the Bosnian Serbs, but we're not responsible for the SVA???
The New York Times June 10, 2004
Fight Fire With Compassion
By DONALD P. GREGG
<snip>
But the agency, I am gratified to say, took a strong stand against the
use of torture in Vietnam. Under William Colby's direction,
interrogation centers were set up, under American control, and
coercive techniques were forbidden. I learned from my experiences in
Vietnam from 1970 to 1972 that by treating prisoners humanely we
frequently (though not always) gained valuable intelligence from them.
This was particularly true of battered prisoners who had held out
against prolonged South Vietnamese torture, but responded to being
treated with compassion by Americans.
<end excerpt>
This whole op-ed is worth reading as a study in double think. The whole thing is a testament about how torture was the most normal thing in our empire and he presents it as if it was evidence of our higher moral standing and his in particular. It's incredible. But minds structured like this are an invaluable peep into part of what makes the system possible. It explains how people who have all the signs of being normal and intelligent can testify in full sincerity to what are on their face the most outrageous claims. It's not only that they're lying jesuitically and by omission. It's that they're sociopathic. They not only wouldn't recognize the evidence of their guilt if you put it in front of their face -- they would embrace it as evidence of their higher nature. And they're treated as normal because where they come from, this is.
Michael