The war on terror is a form of terror: "The Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture in Copenhagen was the first to provide systematic medical care for torture victims, and to research its effects. 'We thought that the aim of torture was to obtain information,' states the centre's Dr Inge Genefke. 'But no. The main aim of torture is to break down, to destroy the identity, the personality.'
After years of research, the centre concluded: 'The target group of government-sanctioned torture are leaders of ethnic minorities, human rights fighters, union members, politicians, student leaders, journalists and others.'
These were all selected because they were leading personalities, pursuing goals inimical to government policies. Once broken, these victims 'are full of anxiety, depressions ... their families suffer. Others are intimidated, afraid of being exposed to the same treatment, and do not dare to follow their more courageous exemplars.'
... The war on terror is a perfect state of psychosis within which the darkness can extend itself. It has no defined boundaries, no fixed territorial enemies: it takes what yesterday were deemed to be simple crimes, and extends them mentally to incriminate whole populations, social groups or religions.
There is only one antidote to this creeping sickness: the insistence upon universal human rights, within whose spirit torture was outlawed by the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture. Forbidden are any officially sanctioned acts "by which severe pain or suffering,whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person". "
- posted by geoff @ #