could be the resulting travails for our nation if our leaders continue their present dithering over whether agents of the United States Government, who were authorized, encouraged or directed to commit acts of torture by bureaucrats of President George W. Bush’s administration, performed such acts effectively and beneficially. The nation needs action now on this matter.
Sir Thomas More once said (courtesy of "A Man for All Seasons") and I paraphrase his statement: A country’s leaders, when they forsake their beliefs for short term gains, put their country on a short route to Hell.
A corollary to More’s statement is: A nation’s leaders who forsake the laws and morals of their nation also place their country on a short route to Hell.
Across the jump a short overview of our current torture turmoil is presented.
The state of the current twittering (too damn much Twittering is going on with very little thinking) seems to be very much focused on whether the torture was beneficial (i.e., produced "actionable intelligence") or not – forget about the legal or moral questions.
A passage (boldfaced emphasis added) from Philip Zelikow’s New York Times Op Ed, "A Dubious C.I.A. Shortcut"illustrates the fuss over effectiveness of the United States’ torture program:
Good intelligence can sometimes be gained by tormenting captives beyond endurance. It is an old, old technique, refined during the 20th century by science — and pseudo-science. By 1949 George Orwell could envision the shrewdly calibrated torments that induced his protagonist in "1984" to love Big Brother. Such methods worked all too well, Orwell feared. The United States experimented in the 1950s and 1960s with novel ways of extracting information. But, until 2002, it never considered the kind of systematic and truly Orwellian C.I.A. program that has now been revealed. Yet the question lingers: Do such methods really work? Don’t we need something like this? Philip Zelikow
But thank goodness the United States still has one or two sane public people, and Paul Krugman's New York Times Op Ed, "Reclaiming America’s Soul," offers us an example of a lucid public American:
Others, I suspect, would rather not revisit those years because they don’t want to be reminded of their own sins of omission.
For the fact is that officials in the Bush administration instituted torture as a policy, misled the nation into a war they wanted to fight and, probably, tortured people in the attempt to extract 'confessions' that would justify that war. And during the march to war, most of the political and media establishment looked the other way.
It’s hard, then, not to be cynical when some of the people who should have spoken out against what was happening, but didn’t, now declare that we should forget the whole era — for the sake of the country, of course. Paul Krugman
And Krugman continues:
Sorry, but what we really should do for the sake of the country is have investigations both of torture and of the march to war. These investigations should, where appropriate, be followed by prosecutions — not out of vindictiveness, but because this is a nation of laws. Paul Krugman
Our nation, by way of the Senate Watergate Hearings, the House Nixon Impeachment Hearings and court cases, has dealt successfully with foundation shaking issues of national import and I have no doubt that we can do the same now.
Let’s get on with the investigation of the now, publicly affirmed acts of torture committed by the United States. Then, we should prosecute those who were responsible for approving and implementing such illegal and immoral policy.
I look forward to our next Sam Dash, Peter W. Rodino, Jr. and John J. Sirica; public people of great stature and conviction – stalwart supporters and enforcers of our nation’s laws and Constitution.
Who will fill the shoes of these three great Americans?