This man authorized torture. Never forget that.
Significant emotional events, a term learned in a Sociology class, are instances in your life that change you. They are events that once they occur, you cannot go back to being the person you were before that event. Some of the significant emotional events I have experienced in my life have been being bullied in elementary and grade school, going through Army basic training, becoming a father, seeing my parents age and pass away, and going to Dachau when I was stationed in Germany.
As a child I grew up watching the sanitized version of war that was available on the meager channel selection of early cable TV. My dad loved watching westerns and war movies. The Longest Day, The Sands of Iwo Jima, Rat Patrol, Combat, To Hell and Back, Battleground ... the list goes on and on. Men died, but there was no blood. The Japanese were portrayed as savages, the Germans/Nazis were portrayed as efficient, but not really evil. The only time I ever had a hint of how evil the Nazis were was during an episode of the Twilight Zone, Deaths-Head Revisited, and even that left a lot to the imagination for someone who did not live through that time.
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In 1987, my battalion chaplain arranged a trip to Munich and PSG McCoy chose me to go from our platoon. What I did not know was that Dachau was the ultimate destination of our trip. The gas chambers, the ovens, the hall where Dr. Mengele's experiments were detailed. I'd read sanitized versions of the concentration camps in history books, but I had no idea of how evil and brutal the Nazis were until that moment. I finally understood the hushed tones of my uncles when discussing the war and liberating camps. We, the Americans, were the good guys. The Nazis were efficient, an efficient killing machine. Torture was a way of life for the SS. If they thought you were an enemy of the state and were captured, you wished for a quick death. Execution was preferred over what the Nazis would do to you to get information.
Out of the ashes of World War II came a set of rules for warfare. The Nuremberg principles:
Principle VI
"The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
The Allied powers defeated fascism and made sure that the Nazis and those who committed atrocities in the name of Imperial Japan were tried and punished for their crimes against humanity. Throughout World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the first Gulf War, the United States did not, as a rule, torture prisoners of war. We were the good guys. We held ourselves to a higher standard. We did not lower ourselves to the level of our enemies. We did not torture.
When I was a young a newly promoted NCO (non-commissioned officer), I was sent to a course on how to handle prisoners of war. I can't tell you much about that course as it has for the most part faded from memory; however, I do remember the senior NCO instructor telling us that if we captured prisoners, or if prisoners were under our protection, then we should follow one rule. Treat the prisoners as we would hope our fellow soldiers would be treated if they were captured.
How did the United States get here, where we are today? How is that six in 10 Americans are actually okay with torturing people? The argument from the right—and some on the left—is that the attacks on 9/11 justify torture. That torture is acceptable in order to prevent another attack, or that the people in the World Trade Center towers were tortured when two planes crashed into the towers that fateful September day.
I remember watching the planes hit, the people jumping out of buildings. Those are images that I will never be able to forget. This was a significant emotional event for every American citizen. Once the dust cleared, the majority of the population wanted vengeance. To do what had been to us, to exact revenge, to seek justice for those who had perished that day.
President Bush, Vice President Cheney and a host of others approved "enhanced interrogation techniques," not torture, and they designated captives as "enemy combatants" instead of prisoners of war. By designating them as unlawful combatants, the Bush administration would not have to abide by the Geneva Convention.
In my youth and through my young adulthood, the United States was the good guy. We had our problems, but for the most part, we were the example of how a nation should conduct itself during times of war. In the modern era of our nation we strived to not lower ourselves to the behavior of our enemies. That all changed with 9/11. If a terrorist organization beheaded an American citizen, the majority wanted blood in return. We stooped to the level of our enemies. We tortured people for information—even though someone being tortured would say anything to end the torture.
Our leaders committed war crimes in our names. We are all guilty, whether we like it or not. It sickens me to know what was done in the name of protecting our nation. None of it was necessary, and it has likely created a new generation of soldiers that will want to fight us for what we did.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney should be tried for war crimes. I have long argued against this action, feeling it would appear to be a partisan attack; however, after reading the torture report, it has become clear that our nation was party to torturing prisoners of war that were in our care. Instead of showing them our good side, we showed them that we truly were the monsters that their propaganda told them we were. Enhanced interrogation was not about getting information. It was about vengeance.
Attorney General Eric Holder must appoint a special prosecutor for those who committed such crimes, and the Obama administration must dismiss CIA head John Brennan and all employees at the CIA who were involved. We do not live in the fictional world of Jack Bauer. Torture never works, and no one is going to save the world by torturing anyone. All people, whether they are prisoners of war, enemy combatants, or any other term someone whips up in the future deserve to be treated humanely.
If we sink to the level of an enemy who brutally beheads people for little or no reason, then what have we become?
Sign the petition: The United States tortured people. Demand Accountability.