corrente

My, my, my…the BBC notes that freedom and democracy exports are rising. No trade deficit here:

...The former CIA officer acknowledged that some of the suspects sent to places such as Egypt could then be tortured.

But he said: "It wouldn't be us torturing them and I think there is a lot of Hollywood involved with our portrayal of torture in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

"Human rights is a very flexible concept... It depends how hypocritical you want to be on a particular day."

Human rights campaigners, however, find it difficult to reconcile rendition with President Bush's claims of upholding the United Nations convention against torture. It says: "No state shall expel, return or exradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture."

Mr Scheuer was among other ex-CIA officers who told File On 4 that as well as sending people to Guantanamo Bay, both the CIA and the US military were sending dozens of others to prisons in countries such as Jordan, Syria and Egypt.

Say, isn’t Syria an outpost of tyranny? Oh well. As Thomas Jefferson said, “human rights is very a very flexible concept, and must account for political reality—for instance, we’ll keep slavery legal and exterminate the Native peoples.” Oh, no, wait. He didn’t say that.

Around here, when the corporate-run jails get full, the overflow goes to Texas, where, for some reason, they always have room.

Human rights are apparently as flexible as reality to some folks.

Some days, I marvel that we can idealistically talk about human rights atall, without crying or laughing, or both, until the snot and tears cover us completely.