It Isn't Just Them, Folks, It's Us Too
More and more these days, I feel like I’m in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter is in charge. There will be a startling item in the news, in a commentary, or in an article. It will be about an issue of real import but after that initial mention, it just fades away, rarely if ever to be heard about again. Even more astounding is the frequency with which the obvious and logical consequences that should result from the issue never materialize.
A case in point is all the debate about waterboarding. It is torture, it isn’t torture, and back and forth it goes with the administration, lawyers, legislators, and pundits, all joining in.
Then comes the news that a man named Daniel Levin, in his capacity as acting assistant attorney general, was assigned the task of determining the legality of the various techniques referred to as “enhanced interrogation.” After subjecting himself to waterboarding to help with his decision, Levin declared that it is torture. He did not say, it might be torture, or perhaps under some circumstances it could be torture. He said IT IS TORTURE.
So that settled it. Well, not exactly. His report didn’t see the light of day, he lost his job; the administration, while claiming “The United States of America… does not torture,” continued to allow waterboarding, and the debate continued to rage.
Once Levin’s conclusion did surface (three years after the fact) surely then, the debate ended and waterboarding was banned... Right? Wrong.
The debate continues, the new almost-Attorney General isn’t sure if waterboarding is torture, and we can only assume the use of waterboarding continues as well. Are we living in some kind of a nut house? Has the entire populace gone mad? How is it possible in this, the land of the free, that we allow this kind of thing to go on?
How can an honorable man do the job he is given, be fired for doing it well, and we allow it ?
How can a technique that any sane person knows is torture be used by our government and we allow it ?
How can our country charge, convict, and sentence to 15 years, a Japanese officer for war crimes for using waterboarding,* then later claim it is not torture, and we allow it ?
How can this administration act like they can do whatever they want regardless of what the Constitution says, and we allow it ?
We can complain to one another about the administration, about the weak congress, or anything else that is going on. But until we recognize that our lack of action, our refusal to speak truth to power, enables these things to continue we are just tilting at windmills.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”
That was never more true than it is today.
* See Washington Post article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html
Comments
Speaking of not hearing about things again Trish, that reminds me of an incident a year or so ago in Iraq when a huge ammunition dump, ours, exploded for half an hour. I watched it live on TV, and heard nothing about it afterwards, nada! It’s like it never happened. One can only surmise that it was a huge hit on the U.S. military and they didn’t want us to know, so for some reason the media didn’t report it.
It’s just like when this Administration didn’t want us to know we had dead soldiers or something to that effect, so they told the media they couldn’t show any pictures of the coffins, and they didn’t. Just like that! In past wars those coffins were proudly welcomed back to our shores, the soldiers being heroes. Now, they are snuck into the country in the dark of night.
Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) is a senior United States senator and former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. On June 19, 2005 he told CBS’s Bob Schieffer “I'm allowed in the military base (Dover Air Force Base). I'm not allowed to go to the mortuary. I'm not allowed to be there when the flag-draped casket comes in.” That’s hard to believe, but true.
The key, and a rather bothersome one at that, is what you pointed out, the fact that we allow it. The truth of the matter is that a lot of people in this nation believe we should use torture, and that includes our marvelous Commander-in-Chief and the real person in charge, Mr. Vice President himself. They don’t care that experts say torture is not effective, or that the Geneva Conventions were created to spare combatants on both side from being tortured -- so much for supporting the troops. One of my next blogs will include a little blurb on a town hall telephone conference call with Wally Herger. I actually heard his constituents tell him we should torture those Radical Islamics, and I don’t recall hearing him disagree.
This all reminds me of the three see, hear and speak no evil monkeys, accept now those monkeys are in charge. One can only guess at the mentality of those enabling them, and called voters, among other things.
As for Jefferson – sigh – I wish he were here now!
Posted by: Stephen | November 11, 2007 11:53 PM