The Vast Republican Porn Ring

Well, it's not my idea of a fun sex fling, but Christopher Shays thinks it is. The Raw Story reports,

Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT) said in a debate Wednesday night that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were part of a "sex ring," but not torture, RAW STORY has learned.

"It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops," Shays indicated in a debate, "who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked, and they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture."

Shays has since indicated in interviews that though he does consider it sex abuse, and believes sex abuse is torture, he believes it was "more about pornography than torture."

Setting aside the question of how sex and torture so often go together, let's play out the logic that Shays has unwittingly spun himself into. By nearly all accounts, sexual humiliation of Muslims has been and remains one of the quintessential forms of abuse at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Baghram, and elsewhere. Look at the testimony. Nearly every case, in addition to other forms of torture, involves some kind of sexual humiliation. Now, recall that, lo, not so long ago a majority of Congress - and almost every Republican - voted to allow the Bush administration's CIA to continue these practices under the rubric of "alternative interrogation." Indeed, the Republican-led US government has now essentially institutionalized and legalized the practice of torture where sexual abuse (porn?) is at its very center.

See where I'm going?

For more exciting vast Republican porn ring commentary, see Sisyphus Shrugged and Digby.