I’ve been finally reading Shock Doctrine ^[1], by Naomi Klein.  She starts out by quoting Milton Friedman who states that a only a crisis (real or perceived), can create a situation where change can occur. He argues that having free market solutions, ready to be implemented so that when a crisis occurs, they can be pushed through before society is able to resist the changes. She describes this much better and you can read her introduction here ^[2].

She then goes into an interesting background of shock therapy, mind control, and the MKULTRA program which then became the basis of the CIA’s torture practices.

Waterboarding ^[3], isn’t everything that prisoners have been subjected to: Sensory deprivation (no light for months at a time except for during interrogations) , isolation, combined with beatings, electroshock, genital mutilation, drugs ^[4], sodomy ^[5], and rape ^[6].

Obama has stated that releasing the photos would endanger the troops. But if we take this rational to the next level, Glenn Greenwald argures that it “means we should conceal or even outright lie about all the bad things we do that might reflect poorly on us. For instance, if an Obama bombing raid slaughters civilians in Afghanistan…, then, by this reasoning, we ought to lie about what happened and conceal the evidence depicting what was done ^[7].”  By not releasing the photos we are protecting sex criminals ^[8] and human rights violators.

Because the book was written relatively recently, the descriptions of what has been/is being ^[9] done is pretty up to date. She states that torture has its roots in brainwashing and that prisoners have been driven crazy ^[10] from their treatments.

Now Obama is pushing for prisoners with shattered minds to be able to plead guilty in a military court and receive the death penalty without a full ^[11] or open trial.

This is insane. If we truly believe in justice and freedom, we would prosecute those that ordered and followed through with torture and sexual assault ^[12]. As for protecting the troops, bring them home.