Bless her soul, our very own feed vigilante, the endlessly empathetic Cartouche pointed the way late last night to the harrowing tale of OS member Rutilus Extraho and has since  been tirelessly pounding the hustings for people to make it go viral through Digg and Reddit.

She's a smart cookie, that Cartouche, who understands the power of the Internet and has a good eye for the worthy tale; she's justified in her frustration at how few others in this particular community seem to share her passion for making things happen in the world beyond the OS sandbox.

So I read Mr. Extraho's heart wrenching account of misfortune and despair and found it worthy, too. I took the few moments out of my morning necessary to add my 2¢ to the Digg tally. I'd love to see the story get wider play because it adds a compelling voice to the debate about healthcare in this country, just when you thought there were way too many voices yammering on about it in the first place.

But such is the magic of OS that I found something even more harrowing, even more gut wrenching and nausea inducing and enflaming and horrible, and now I must join the lovely and talented Cartouche on the hustings to implore your consideration in Digging the story of Craig Murray.

I give props to OS member Dennis Loo, who wrote Saturday evening about Murray's astounding experience at the hands of the British Foreign Service and the CIA.  I chose to Digg the original news account of Murray's story from Consortium News because Dennis' post was largely a re-post of the item from CN, and because I feel confident Dennis' main concerns have less to do with gaining notice for himself than they do with getting the word out about what happened to Mr. Murray -- and what continues to be done in the name of America's freedom.

Our way of life is being preserved through unspeakable acts routinely committed against innocent, defenseless, nameless, voiceless human beings -- many of them women and children -- in places few of us could ever in our most gripping nightmares imagine.

And yet, our leaders -- even the newest cadre of It Takes Timers -- remain steadfast in their belief in the necessity of things like extraordinary rendition and in things like boiling people alive.  When Mr. Murray -- a well-regarded 20 year veteran of the British Foreign Service -- expressed his disapproval of the human torture he became aware of while serving as the UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, he received a note from his superiors that read:

“Dear Ambassador, we are concerned that you are perhaps over-focused on human rights to the detriment of commercial interests.”

When he sent a staff member to inquire about his concern that the CIA's data on terrorist identifications stemmed from Uzbek torture, the CIA's head of station in Uzbekistan reported back:

“Yes, it probably is coming from torture, but we don’t see that as a problem in the context of the war on terror.” 

This is America's Achilles Heel. This is President Obama's singular failure. This is why we can never win the war on terror.

Digg it.