Monkey Torture Theatre

What should not be, cannot be, must not be, even if it is:

This week's revelation of another secret Bush administration memo that seemed to eliminate any boundaries on the treatment of detainees added to the already substantial evidence that US military and intelligence interrogators have abused and perhaps even tortured prisoners rounded up during the "war on terror."

Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo wrote in 2003 that Bush's seemingly supreme authority in wartime trumped federal laws "prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes," as the Washington Post reported. For constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley, the latest memo should be more than enough reason for Congress to begin some serious investigations, but hesitance to really dig into Bush-authorized "war crimes" have precluded them from doing so, he says.

"It is really amazing because Congress -- including the Democrats -- have avoided any type of investigation into torture because they do not want to deal with the fact that the president ordered war crimes," Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Thursday night. "But evidence keeps on coming out.... What you get from this is this was a premeditated and carefully orchestrated torture program. Not torture, but a torture program."

Of course they're not going to look at the issue. This is America, land of the Myth. And the biggest myth we tell ourselves is how "good" we are on the world's stage, while ignoring just how horrible we have actually acted since the days of Woodrow Wilson. Even in WWII when we were trying the Nazi's for war crimes, we lost on some of the charges we laid against Admiral Donitz because Admiral Nimitz ordered the same exact thing!