One of the 60 previously unpublished Abu Ghraib photographs that the U.S. Government has been fighting to keep secret in a court case with the American Civil Liberties Union. From the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia.

A READER WRITES that, in his opinion, the questions Jesse Ventura asked about waterboarding were the least uncomfortable that could have been asked. And, he adds, we can’t “descend to the moral level” of Saddam Hussein, since we’ve already passed that point:

“Why is the subject of torture being confined to waterboarding? Other forms were used in Iraq, as everyone knows.

“And in terms of increasingly ‘resembling Saddam Hussein,’ he was convicted for the murder of 148 people committed a year before the U.S. began supporting him.

“Where does the civilian death count in Iraq and Afghanistan stand today? Even though death figures become suddenly vague, unlike those of Saddam, it is certainly more than 148 people who have been murdered as a direct result of federal orders. Claiming all were ‘terrorists’ is the same justification Saddam used. Claiming ‘casualties of war’ is bogus: No declaration of war exists outside of federal and commercial media spin and lingo.

“Taking a snapshot of downtown Baghdad a year before and then a year after Saddam fell from power, given both forms of central power sat in palaces, which picture would look more conducive to public happiness? It seems to me that if the U.S. federal government more resembled Saddam in Iraq, it would be a change for the better.”

JESSE VENTURA ASKS UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS: Former Governor Ventura has managed to ask the obvious questions on the subject of U.S. government torture — questions that should have been asked a long time ago: “If waterboarding is okay, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects to learn what they know?… If waterboarding is okay, why didn’t we waterboard McVeigh and Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers, to find out if there were more people involved?… We only seem to waterboard Muslims. …Have we waterboarded anybody else? Name me someone else we’ve waterboarded.”

Government nabobs and Fox News liars won’t respond truthfully, Jesse. As we biologically descend to the level of a Third World state and become ensnared in Mideastern religious wars, our government and morals and culture will increasingly resemble those of Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, and Menachem Begin. Torture included.