The excuse.

With the release of a summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's post-9/11 torture program to be released Tuesday, we're sure to have several torturers singing that old song: "I Was Just Following Orders".  Of course it's bullshit. It takes a sick, sadistic shit to follow orders like that just as it takes a sick, sadistic cop to commit the crimes in the street that we have seen so much of lately. Who accepts the job of water-boarding an "enemy combatant", another human being who feels pain and fear? Only someone without pity, without empathy, or, worse, with a desire to see suffering. No, it's not your job. It's your pleasure. What kind of cop leaps out of patrol car and within seconds shoots a 12-year-old boy without any further investigation? An arrogant, trigger-happy, sadist who doesn't know the difference between a video game and the real world. He's happy to kill people in both. The really scary thing is these sick and soulless people are everywhere and until they act they're almost impossible to recognize.