Torture by the USA
Normally I love euphemisms. This time, I think they are part of the problem.
Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, indeed. Torture by any other name would smell just as foul. I wonder why they never created an acronym for it to make it seem less offensive still - how about EITs?
Me, I will just call it torture. And while I agree that there is a scale of lesser to greater torture, it is still torture.
And it is still a national disgrace that we go tiptoeing around this issue. It is an international disgrace and a persistent stain on the nation. Lets not hide from that. The USA tortured its prisoners. The USA behaved immorally. And all of us who are citizens of the USA are responsible for that.
There is no doubt in my mind that those who wrote the rules instructing our agents that torture was to be used, are guilty of crimes. And there is no doubt in my mind that those who went beyond these guidelines are guilty of crimes. I go one step further though, I believe that anyone who followed those guidelines is also guilty of crimes. If the Crimes Against Humanity Trials teach us anything, it is that following orders is no excuse. This is a lesson the world has repeated ever since the end of WWII: an individual’s moral and legal responsibility is never alleviated just because they are following orders
The US needs to say its mea culpa and each of those who authorized or who engaged in the process must do so as well. As a citizens of this country, until such time as we open this to the light of day and prosecute each and every one for their breach of the Geneva Convention, we share their guilt.
Now the Obama administration is again engaging in special rendition and is setting up special FBI interrogation teams. Are we about to descend into the criminality again? Has the fact that we are excusing the crimes of the previous administration enabled the current administration to slip down this slippery slope again?
I hope not.
It is up to us as citizens to make sure that we don’t.
