Canadian Waterboards Bush Appointee

Here is Avi Lewis putting some tough questions about torture to Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State under Bush.



I like this interview. It puts a human face on Armitage. I think Armitage stands up well in the interview and I think I see real pain on his face when he admits that he probably should have resigned from the Bush admininstration over the torture issue. Real life is infintely more complex than our theories or opinions. When Armitage was in power I had a visceral hatred for his ramrod military "toughness" and the way he dismissed any questions he didn't want to answer. Here he appears older, sadder, more humble. I feel he has learned a lesson in life. I may be fooling myself like Bush with his "seeing into the soul of Putin". I notice that Armitage is selling his services, so he obviously thinks he still "knows" something worth selling. So I may be wrong. That's life. It's a muddle.

By the way... It is interesting that a number of Canadian broadcasters now work with the Al Jazeera English. This gives this network instant credibility. Avi Lewis hosts the show Inside USA.

And while on the topic of torture... here is a discussion of the Bush torture memos and what the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) said about the subjects of torture. You can see there is a big gap between what the Bush admin "saw" and what the ICRC "saw". Interesting how our prejudices blind us and shape what we "see".

Here is a simple experiment to show you that "what you see" may not be as simple as you think...



The above is not an example of ideology blinding you. It is an example of how attention can in fact distract as it shapes your awareness so that things "happen" that you never see. Reality is far more complex than our naive realism admits.