Thoughts on Torture

Okay, I have to tackle this subject. Sure there’s been way too much said about it, but I will have to add my two cents to the cacophony. Why? Because we can’t let this one go. We can’t just ‘keep walking’ as Peggy Noonan suggests, and not look back, in the hopes of having the whole ugly episode ‘just go away.’ It won’t. If we don’t expose it to the disinfectant of sunshine, some other party somewhere on the planet will—and that will leave us looking even worse.

You can read the torture memos yourself at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/bush-torture-memos-releas_n_187867.html


It’s not pleasant reading. And it’s not pretty to think that our national leaders spent so much time parsing the details of what temperature of water was required to douse a prisoner with, for how long, before it actually became torture, nor whether having a physician and psychologist just standing there could assure there would be no lasting damage that would make it torture. The very fact that they studied the processes so closely and refined the details so exquisitely means they were dancing on the line—often wandering over that line, either by accident or design. It’s ugly to think about.

And there is Cheney. Now, I don’t have to add to the public dismay at the character of Cheney. All of that is obvious—it’s self-explanatory—from the lying on camera to push the war in Iraq—to the handwriting on the memo regarding Valerie Plame. It’s a dismal ‘legacy’ for Cheney to leave behind, and no doubt his progeny will have to bear the burden of it, because he surely doesn’t seem inclined to. That is his personal concern. It’s his personal conscience that he must live with, for now and throughout the ages. I wish him luck on it.

Let us just say that we can’t let this sleeping dog lie. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. We can’t even pretend it wasn’t as bad as it clearly turned out to be. America is better than that. America is stronger than that. We can admit we were led astray. We can admit we were paralyzed with fear into inaction. We can even admit that we so wished it wasn’t true. All that is very human. What is inhuman—and inhumane—is that we knew, and did nothing about it once we knew.
That is beneath us. And I don’t believe Americans will tolerate it.