The United State of America Tortures People

This morning I awoke at 4 a.m. I was wide awake. Something was on my mind. Normally I have no problem sleeping. When I go to sleep at night, I’m unconscious until about 6:30 or 7 in the morning. This morning was different. As I lay awake, I reviewed in my mind what was bothering me. Then it came into focus. Our country tortures prisoners. The United State of America tortures people. Never mind that torture has never proven to elicit useful information, our country tortures people. Yes, the United State of America, the self appointed “moral authority” in the world who lectures others countries on human rights abuses, tortures people.

Credit must be given to the Obama administration for releasing the “torture” memos. These twisted logic legal memos that attempted to legalize torture and thus provide cover for the Bush Administration. Last week an additional 2,000 plus photos were released of prisoners in Iraq being tortured and humiliated. What in the world did the Bush/Cheney and Company hope to accomplish by these criminal acts? Didn’t our country sign the Geneva Conventions against cruel and unusual punishment of prisoners or war? The Bush Administration claims that the “terrorists” are different than “normal” prisoners of war because they didn’t wear uniforms. Excuse me? What am I missing here?

The simple fact remains that Bush Administration officials instigated and condoned torture of prisoners. They broke the law. They water boarded prisoners. Cheney admits it. He’s proud of it. Our country executed Japanese soldiers at the end of World War II who water boarded our prisoners of war. How are we any different? Is it because the Bush administration had a legal memo “authorizing” torture and a doctor in attendance?

Barack Obama has a dilemma. He states that he “wants to look forward” and not “backwards.” How convenient. Maybe that’s what the Nazi war criminals should have used as their defense during the Nuremberg War Crimes trials. Maybe that is the defense that Pol Pot should have used when he was caught. No, it doesn’t wash.

Patrick Buchanan, one of the few well known conservatives who will actually listen to other arguments and isn’t brain dead, states that an investigation and trial “would tear this country apart.” He may be right. But the question remains, are we a country of laws or are we not? That is the question. All the conservatives can do is to attempt to drag Nancy Pelosi into the mix by saying she was informed of the torture.

I don’t know the answer. My heart says that we should be a country of laws and not give anyone a pass, even if they are at the highest levels of government. But reality is much different. There is a hard core conservative base in this country which is blind to the abuses, incompetence, and gross negligence of the past eight years of the Bush/Cheney regime. People of this mind set will never change. Most of them think that this country is God anointed for only straight, white people and the rest of us are only “tolerated.” When a complete idiot like the Miss California in the recent Miss USA contest states (response to legalization of same sex marriage) “…..in MY country and the family I was raised in……”, that tells you a lot about the mind set of these people. It is THEIR country and they don’t have room in their tent for anyone who differs from their views. The rest of us are outsiders. Don’t kid yourself this is the way THESE people think.

I didn’t want to post a negative blog on this beautiful, warm spring day but this idea that our country condones torture bothers me a great deal. Hopefully, as time goes by, I will become desensitized to it as much of our country is desensitized to violence in movies. But for now, I feel shock, shame and humiliation. But then I have always been accused of being naïve.

Here is one thing that really bothers me though, these people who initiated the policy of torture. These people who wrote the memos to make torture legal. And these people who carried out the torture. My question is this, how do they sleep at night?

Torture and Miss California

When I started this blog, my intention was not to have a political blog. There are more than enough blogs on the Internet expounding the whole spectrum of political views. What difference would mine make other than to add to the cacophony of angry voices?
However, recently several hot subjects on the political landscape have made it almost impossible for me not to add my voice to the range of opinions being expressed in the public forum.

One subject is same sex marriage. I will address that subject in a future blog. The other subject is torture. Ironically, the recent news has connected these two subjects. Last week, Miss California answered a question about same sex marriage this way:

At the Las Vegas pageant, Prejean, 21, was asked by judge Perez Hilton how she felt about legalizing gay marriage. "In my country, and in my family, I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman,"

Note the phraseology that Miss California uses: “in my county, and in my family” In the country I grew up in I was taught that we did not torture……………..anyone. It didn’t matter how reprehensible the subject of the torture was, WE DID NOT TORTURE. Our country was better than that.

This is an interesting country that we live in now. Many on the Right regularly warn about the end of civilization as we know it if same sex marriages are permitted. Yet, many of these same people see no problem with torturing prisoners. These are the same people who proclaim themselves “good Christians.” They go to church expounding on their “family values.” Hypocrisy is no stranger to their church pews.

Put aside the fact that torture doesn’t work. There is no valid proof that torture has ever provided accurate information. If someone tortured me, I would tell them anything they wanted to know just to get them to stop. It has been proven over and over again information can be obtained by much more subtle means than brute physical torture.

The Bush Administration went to great pains to rewrite the legal laws to provide cover for their torture polices. When the atrocities were first revealed at Abu Ghraib, I literally could not believe it. This was our country? We permitted this to happen? Then when the administration blamed it on a “few bad apples”, I knew they were lying. I was in the Army. Part of my training was not to torture or abuse prisoners. Why in the world would a “few bad apples” take it upon themselves to stack naked prisoners in a pile on the floor? Sic dogs on them? Smear them with feces? No, these were orders from on high.

Now the torture memos have come out. There is a great deal of scrambling for cover. The Republicans are saying the Democratic leaders of the house were informed of the “methods” used for “enhanced interrogation.” As if this justifies the torture. It doesn’t.

Obama is in a bad situation. He has stated that he wants to “look forward” and “not backward.” But, the simple fact is that laws were broken. It appears that the laws in this country against torture were broken from the very highest levels of the government. The highest levels of government means President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Under Secretary Wolfowitz, and Douglas Fieth along with others yet to be named.

I remember reading a book about the Nuremberg War Crimes trials in which the Allied judges refused to accept the “just following orders” defense before passing sentences on the German war criminals. I thought at the time, what would our country do if the situation were reversed? It seems to me, as bad as the Nazi’s were, somewhat unfair to hang the lowly soldiers for just obeying orders. What were they going to do, have a mass revolt? But now it appears that the “just following orders” defense will protect those who carried out the torture of terrorist suspects. What remains to be seen is how our country will deal with those at the top of our government who callously disregarded over two hundred years of American values and ordered torture that accomplished nothing but to put our country in further danger and almost destroy our moral reputation among the community of nations in the world.

Just as Miss California said “In my country and my family, the way I was raised…..”; I will also say “In my country and my family, the way I was raised you didn’t torture.” It is as simple as that. Our country does not torture. George W. Bush made that statement when asked at a photo op some years ago. He angrily replied “The United States does not torture!” Of course we all know he was lying now. Only one of the many lies the Bush Administration told this country.

I’m not sure what should happen now to those who ordered the torture and those who carried it out in the Bush Administration. A great deal of damage has already been done and some will perhaps never be undone. It will take a long time, if ever, until our country regains our reputation as the moral force in the world. One thing I am very thankful for though is that these practices have stopped. I am thankful that all this information is being made public. While it has been proven time and time again that most of the members of the Bush Administration have no shame (a common flaw all the religious self righteous have), the rest of us can show the world that we care and this is not the way our country operates.

Barack Obama was elected by the majority of the American voters. The majority of the American voters have rejected the politics of division that the Republicans so successfully ran over the past decade by using the fear of gay marriage to get their conservative religious base out to vote. So Miss California, same sex marriage is coming whether you like it or not. Torture is out. That is what is happening in “my country and my family” this time. We do not torture.