I sure as hell don't.
Nearly 60 House Democrats yesterday urged the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to examine whether top Bush administration officials may have committed crimes in authorizing the use of harsh interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists.
I doubt that this will accomplish anything, but at least some of our elected officials are standing up for what is right.
"We need an impartial criminal investigation," said Conyers, who called the detainee controversy "a truly shameful episode" in U.S. history. "Because these apparent 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were used under cover of Justice Department legal opinions, the need for an outside special prosecutor is obvious."
We all remember and saw the grotesque images from Abu Gharib. Those disgusting and deplorable pictures seemed like they came from some bizarre horror movie. The acts depicted in those images are human and brutal. They seem like something "the enemy" would do, not soldiers of the United States of America.
Sometime in the past few years some of us discovered the term "waterboarding".
It is defined as a form of torture where an individual is immobilized and lays on their back. Their head is inclined in a downward position. Water is board over their face and breathing passages. The victim experiences forced suffocation and inhalation of water. The subject, because their vision is blinded, believes they are being drowned and that death is imminent.
In 1947 the USA prosecuted a Japanese soldier for using waterboarding, amongst other techniques, to torture an American civilian.
"The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk."
He was sentenced to 15 years hard labor.
In February of this year both Houses of Congress passed a bill to ban waterboarding. Naturally the President vetoed it.
John McCain, who was tortured, voted AGAINST the ban. He once again caved to right-wing pressure. The so-called maverick lost in 2000 and has fallen victim to the right-wing base of the GOP.
The NY Times in 2007 quotes him as saying of waterboarding
“They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”
McCain also mentioned how the torture practice was used in the Spanish Inquisition and by Pol Pot.
Is torture and illegal wiretapping necessary to ensure our safety?
"Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous." - William Proxmire
When did maintaining security at any cost override our American values, our image, and our rights? What was it that differentiated us from the "bad guys"?
I always believed that what made us different was our ability to protect our rights while exercising our powers to protect our people. That what made us different was our ability to respect human rights and fight for them passionately. Perhaps it was even the hope that our leaders were able to respect the checks and balances set by our Constitution to ensure that no branch of government becomes to powerful.
But tell that to Cheney who seems to think that the Vice-Presidency is its own sovereign branch of government.
The Cheney Branch of Government. It is right by the Albert Gonzalez's School of Legal Interpretation.
There has to be a line between civil liberties and security. There needs to be a line between our American values and what is morally and ethically wrong.
Who are supposed to be the bad guys here?
I thought that we were the ones who had the moral high ground.
Maybe I was wrong.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/07/ST2008060701260.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0736443620080308
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/13/mccain-waterboarding-fail/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/us/politics/26giuliani.html?adxnnl=1&ref=politics&adxnnlx=1212944525-LVBMRWwMU/nA4wCxZjBs6g
3 comments:
Nothing but grandstanding by the Democrats. But hey it's an election year. You mention Pol Pot one vicious SOB, tell me how many people died from waterboarding ? Who are supposed to be the bad guys here? If you can't answer that one you need to think a bit harder. You live in the most generous countrys in the world. Don't every question that. But expect to get you ass kicked when you poke the monster.
I have a few missssppeelllings in that last post, but I think it reads close enough.
There are no documented deaths, and why would the government document it? It leads to psychological damage as well as some internal damage.
I have to question it when my government is doing something that I reasonably believe is ethically wrong.
Don't worry about spelling. If it wasn't for spell check my posts would be terrible lol.
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