"And when I have to kill them — but only because they leave me no choice — I'm sorry. I'm truly very, very sorry."

Sympathy for the Oval: Seeking Shreds to Cover the Naked Truth of Power

Let us hear no more excuses for Barack Obama. Let us hear no more defenses, no more special pleading, no more extenuations. Let us have no more reciting of the "pressures" he is under, of the "many obstacles" that balk him in his quest to do us good, of the "bad advisors" who are swaying him to unworthy acts against his will. Let us be done at last with all these wretched lies, these complicitous self-deceptions that are facilitating atrocity and tyranny on a monstrous scale.

Barack Obama has ordered the murder of an American citizen, without trial, without due process, without the production of any evidence. All it takes to kill any American citizen in this way is Barack Obama's signature on a piece of paper, his arbitrary designation of the target as a "suspected terrorist." In precisely the same way -- precisely the same way -- Josef Stalin would place a mark by a name in a list of "suspected terrorists" or "counterrevolutionaries," and the bearer of that name would die. This is the system we have now, the same as the Soviets had then: a leader with the unchallengeable power to kill citizens without due process.

That this power has not been used on the same scale in the American system as in the Stalinist state -- yet -- does not alter the equivalence of this governing principle. In both cases, the leader signs arbitrary death warrants; the security services carry out the task; and the 'great and good' of society accept this draconian power as necessary and right.

This is what you support when you support Barack Obama. It does not matter if you think his opponents in the factional infighting to control a blood-soaked empire and its war machine are "worse" than he is in some measure. When you support him, when you defend him, when you excuse him, it is arbitrary murder that you are supporting. It is the absolute negation of every single principle of enlightenment and human rights professed by liberals, progressives -- indeed, by honorable people of every political stripe -- for centuries.

The monster's hands are dipped in the steaming abdomen of his meal of the moment. He rips out a kidney, or maybe the liver, perhaps the heart. He eats it, grunting and slurping, barely chewing, swallowing large chunks of bleeding flesh. He plunges his hands into the body again, pulls out huge parts of what had been a living human being just moments before, turns his head up, and drops the bloody hunks onto his face. He grunts again -- and then he laughs.

The monster sees us watching. His eyes open wider as he registers our presence. He looks directly at us, and smiles. Blood and pieces of flesh fall out of his mouth. He chuckles quietly. Then, suddenly, he looks at us with an expression suffused with sincerity. He's about to say something, and he wants us to know that what he's about to say is important. He wants to be sure we understand this.

"I take extraordinary measures to avoid killing these people," the monster solemnly says. "I have an interest in reducing these killings, and I'm doing everything I can to prevent them. But sometimes I can't avoid them altogether. When that happens, it's their fault. They leave me no choice."

The monster looks very sad. We hear him sigh deeply, regretfully. A few pieces of bloody, torn flesh fall out of his mouth to the ground. He looks directly at us once more. The monster wants to add another thought, one of special significance.

"And when I have to kill them -- but only because they leave me no choice -- I'm sorry. I'm truly very, very sorry."

The monster sits very still for a few moments. He sighs again. Then he plunges his hands deep into the guts of the body in front of him once more. He leans over and begins shoveling bits of flesh and entrails into his mouth.

Together with the BBC investigation and the ICRC confirmation, we can see that the military is lying through their teeth when they claim there is no second Bagram facility, or that no abuse takes place at Bagram.

The United States is still torturing. Oh sure, they probably aren't waterboarding. But then, waterboarding was never the only form of torture that was used.

I've held off on this issue because of the unequivocal denial by the military that the prison existed and I was willing to give the new administration the benefit of the doubt. Now that the Red Cross has confirmed that the prison does exist, we know for sure that the military was lying --- and the benefit of the doubt goes to the former prisoners.

I should have known better. Any administration which declares that it has the right to unilaterally order American citizens to be assassinated obviously isn't going to be squeamish about a little torture, is it?