Mah freedum uh speech!

We are currently undertaking a letter writing campaign to the advertisers of the Toronto Sun in response to a recent column by Rachel Marsden (h/t to TheManWithNoPoint). In this column, convicted stalker, Fox News throwaway, false rape accuser and all-around sick lunatic Marsden likens the torture technique of waterboarding to swim practice. Which is akin to saying that having your fingernails removed with bamboo is like having a rough manicure. Oh, and you should thank the nail tech, because she's just doing you a favour by toughening you up. Yes, that hag at the day spa who hacked my cuticles to death and probably gave me hepatitis with her dirty clippers was only concerned that I was too soft to make it in life. Thanks, Bertha.

Just in case you had any doubts:

In a further embarrassment for Mr Bush yesterday, Malcolm Nance, an advisor on terrorism to the US departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations and Intelligence, publicly denounced the practice. He revealed that waterboarding is used in training at the US Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School in San Diego, and claimed to have witnessed and supervised "hundreds" of waterboarding exercises. Although these last only a few minutes and take place under medical supervision, he concluded that "waterboarding is a torture technique – period".

The practice involves strapping the person being interrogated on to a board as pints of water are forced into his lungs through a cloth covering his face while the victim's mouth is forced open. Its effect, according to Mr Nance, is a process of slow-motion suffocation.

Typically, a victim goes into hysterics on the board as water fills his lungs. "How much the victim is to drown," Mr Nance wrote in an article for the Small Wars Journal, "depends on the desired result and the obstinacy of the subject.

snip

Mr Nance said US troops were trained to withstand waterboarding, watched by a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a backup team. "When performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt," he added. "Most people cannot stand to watch a high-intensity, kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American."

But according to the editorial board of the Toronto Sun, waterboarding is....meh, under discussion. In response to Frank Frink's angry letter that they saw fit to print, they added this disclaimer:

(Marsden was giving her opinion about whether coercive
interrogation/torture is justified in order to obtain intelligence
information from unlawful enemy combatants, an issue which is now being
widely debated in the United States.)

Yah, dumbass, "widely" debated because Bush and Cheney don't want to end up in shackles for the rest of their miserable days for illegally waterboarding prisoners in the War on Terror (tm), who aren't actually prisoners, you see. They're enemy combatants, so the Geneva Conventions don't apply to them, so torture away! They might be have intelligence! We could prevent the next 9-11! Right. Because we all know that torture gets the truth out of anyone you apply it to. But it's not torture! But we'll use it anyway because we might get some information, even though it's clearly not torture. Although it is morally repugnant. But not torture. I'll be right back. I need a glass of something.

If our letter writing is effective and some of the Toronto Sun's advertisers feel that they'd rather not be endorsed by a convicted stalker and torture advocate who is so unstable that she was escorted from Fox due to her erratic behaviour, I'm sure that the shrieking, wailing, and gnashing of teeth on the right side of the blogosphere will be heard far and wide - "Squawk! The Leftards want to take away free speech! Fascists! Just like Stalin! Squawk!"

First, let me say a pre-emptive "Go fuck yourself".

Next, and finally, let me make this perfectly clear. Yes, Rachel Marsden has the right to say pretty much anything she wants, even that she thinks we should torture teh terrerists, even before we know if they're really terrerists. They're brown and live in the sand, so they must be. She can even agree with Republican Representative Chris Shays that the sexual torture and abuse of the not-prisoners at Abu Ghraib was not abuse, but a swingin' sex party. You know, just like Mom and Dad used to go to. She can say those things. As far as I'm concerned, she can utter whatever sick, twisted words or ideas her depraved mind can come up with.

But.

She has no right - no entitlement - to make a living saying those things at the Toronto Sun or anywhere else.

Let's let the Sun's advertisers know who is endorsing their friendly neighborhood car dealership. Let's remind them that it doesn't look good to be associated with known convicted criminals. Especially ones who damage our national reputation by mocking international law and human rights, and put our troops in danger of reciprocal torture if they are captured. Let's remind them that by advertising in a publication that not only continues to employ someone like Marsden, but supports her, their business is effectively condoning her screeds and validating her opinions.

Let's let the market decide.

Thanks to TheManWithNoPoint for the initial call to arms, and bastard.logic for taking the ball and running with it. And everyone else who is, or gets, involved. You rock! Let's get to typing, y'all - I want to hear those keyboards snapping under the pressure and fury!