The Right are in quite a dither, indeed!
One thing about America - it might not be perfect, but it doesn't hide itself from any reckoning with its past.
As much as the Right might hate it, and various Europeans, Russians and so many others deny it - America does confront its past. It might take awhile, but it surely does, in a way that provides an example to everyone else. President Obama took a courageous decision; he also tried to provide the reassurance of a 3rd World Truth Commission. Since when did the United States of America need such a commission? When Bush, et al, denied everything America stands for, I guess.
President Obama released the torture memos, but promised not to prosecute those who did the torturing. This has had the Right in quite a state; the only one I was sincerely disappointed with was Peggy Noonan - I thought she was made of better stuff. Apparently I was wrong. Shame on you, Ms Noonan. Chris Buckley wrote a fatuous defense of the torture - I'm astonished at him, too. Although, to be fair - he did give some justification that is plausible. Even as it is unforgivable.
Politically, Obama did the right thing. Morally, I can't tell the difference between the American torturers and any others. "I was following orders" was not a defense in the Nuremburg Trials, and I can't see how it is a defense right now. Especially as America is supposed to occupy the high moral ground!
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales, and so many others deserve the blame for this moral quagmire. It doesn't matter if the enemy is so much worse - we, in the west, do not stoop to lower the moral bar! They behead innocents - the executors being cowards, wear masks that remind me of the KKK. They often showing the results in videos available all over the Internet. We do not - we provide fair trials, we provide habeus corpus! They execute wontonly - we do not. They distort history - we do not. They justify their heinous crimes - we prosecute them.
Those right wing pundits, defending and ridiculing the concept of torture should take a long, hard look in the mirror - and question their own depravity. They should question what they are defending - America, or some thwarted state? The Constitution, with its protections against cruel and unjust punishments, or a figurehead they think supercedes that Constitution? Have they read The Constitution? Digested it? Allowed it to be a part of their personal morality? Embraced it as a fundamentally correct vision for humanity?
We can have draconian punishments - without the need to subvert what America means.
We must be morally above our enemies. Because if we are not - we are our enemy.
Carolyn Ann
After the second World War we executed Japanese officers for the waterboard torture and subsequent murder of civilians in Singapore. I can't find the exact trial transcripts I found a few months ago, but found a quick reference here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vqronline.org/articles/2008/winter/genoways-torture/
There are other references to punishment of those responsible for acts like this as well.
I remember being told I had the right to refuse an order I thought unlawful; I'd like to think I would have!
So for anyone else to think they are protected, excluded or forgiven for doing that which we executed others for, I'm sorry, you are wrong!
And now in light of the more recent information that has come out about one person being waterboarded 183 times in less than a month, I think each person who thinks this isn't torture needs to willingly submit to it 6 times a day for 30 days.
I pity anyone, military or civilian our enemies decide to make an example of using this for ammunition!
alan