Torture, Genocide, Etc.: All In a Day's Work

So sayeth Assistant Attorney General Tony West:

Citing the Westfall Act, Tony West wrote that "the type of activities alleged against the individual defendants were 'foreseeable' and were 'a direct outgrowth' of their responsibility to detain and gather intelligence from suspected enemy combatants." In defending the government's position, West cited case law stating that "genocide, torture, forced relocation, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by individual defendants employed by Department of Defense and State Department were within scope of employment" and similar cases justifying CIA torture as part of official duty.

I can't believe just how far this country has sunk.  Teabaggers can scream that health care reform means Obama's a big ol' sociocommiefascist.  But they're ignorant enough of history to miss the fact that it wasn't universal health care that marked Nazi Germany as a deadly threat to the world.  It was the fact that they went about calmly murdering entire classes of people, and they, too, saw that as "within scope of employment."

(Tip o' the shot glass to Mike at C&L, who led me to David Swanson, who led me to the above outrage.)