Do We Americans Reject Torture?

The C.I.A. continues to run interrogation of "militants" on distant U.S. military bases and contracts some of these interrogations out to countries who don't hesitate to use brutal methods. Is this acceptable to us as Americans?

President Obama claims to have ended brutal, illegal interrogations, yet his Justice Department takes no action to hold those who approved it or conducted it, accountable for what they did. Nor is the President transparent in what we do today.

As the New York Times stated, "Thus far ... our official history has honored only those who approved torture, not those who rejected it. In December 2004, as the leadership of the C.I.A. was debating whether to destroy videotapes of prisoners being waterboarded in the agency’s secret prisons, President Bush bestowed the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on George J. Tenet, the former C.I.A. director who had signed off on the torture sessions. In 2006, the Army major general who oversaw the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo was given the Distinguished Service Medal. One of the lawyers responsible for the Bush administration’s 'torture memos' received awards from the Justice Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Agency."

When is it time to honor those many Military, C.I.A., Justice Department and other governmental personnel who refused to conduct torture? When is it time to recognize people like Spec. Joseph Darby, an Army reservist serving in Iraq, who in 2004 had the principle and courage that led to the publishing of the Abu Ghraib torture pictures? It is people like Spec. Darby who protect our freedoms, risking their livelihoods and sometimes their lives to do so. When do we at least attempt to rectify the damage our actions caused to the victims of our torture and to their families? Or are these widespread shameful acts acceptable to us?

If so, this is the example we set for our children: That regardless of our Constitution, regardless of the Geneva Convention, regardless of the United Nations charter, all of which outlaw what we did and may still be doing, we will take any action, lawful or otherwise, to accomplish what we want.

Are these the acts of a great nation? If you think not, speak-up. They've found the courage to raise their voices in the Middle East, risking their lives to do it. Surely, we who are not in such danger can do that as well. Isn't that a far better example to set for our children?

Dick
To read the New York Times article, please see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/opinion/28jaffer.html...