The article in today's Crooks and Liars is one of the most disturbing things I have read in a long time.
It's sad how conservatives have been influenced by FOX's "24" and adopted Jack Bauer's persona all for themselves. The torture scenes seem to have seeped into their consciousnesses and made them believe that this is how all good Americans should handle impossibly dangerous situations. ... Check out the [below] video ... It's torture porn.
The extent of the torture and violence of 24 led the dean of West Point, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, to visit the set of 24 last fall to:
...voice their concern that the show's central political premise--that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country's security--was having a toxic effect.
And now that "toxic effect" is taking hold in bold and almost unimaginable of ways.
Two
former veterans of the Iraq war are running for congress. They both
were fired from the military under charges of murder and torture of
detainees. And they've both made the charges the centers of their campaigns.
The Daily Beast has labeled them "Jack Bauer Republicans."
Last week, Ilario Pantano won the Republican nomination in North Carolina's 7th District...
... In April 2004, Pantano killed two unarmed Iraqi detainees, twice unloading his gun into their bodies and firing between 50 and 60 shots in total. Afterward, he placed a sign over the corpses featuring the Marines' slogan "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" as a message to the local population.
His excuse was "self defense." Two unarmed men. 60 bullets. Self defense. Sidetrack: In the musical Chicago, one of the women on Murderers' Row explains her case: "I was carving up the chicken for dinner minding my own business
when in comes my husband Wilber in a jealous rage. 'You been screwin'
the milkman?' He was crazy. 'You been screwin' the milkman?!' And then
that's when he ran into my knife. He ran into my knife ten times!" (The Cell Block Tango).
Sorry, but the analogy was too good to pass up. 60 bullets can't be any part of a defense. It's just as ridiculous as someone running into a knife ten times. Both are the definition of overkill. And the sign only demonstrated his intense hatred for the people.
While Pantano says that he doesn't want his campaign to dwell in the past, the same cannot be said for retired Lt. Col. Allen West, running in Florida's 22nd District to replace Democratic Rep. Ron Klein.
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