Friends,
I'm Doug Denneny, a decorated Iraq War combat veteran running for U.S. Congress in Virginia's 11th Congressional District in Northern Virginia. Doug's Picture My website is Dougforcongress.com and I'll be live blogging tonight (Sunday 3/9/2008) at 8:00 pm e.s.t. I'll be ready to answer your questions. I've been endorsed by Congressman Patrick Murphy and Congressman Joe Sestak, as well as VETPAC.
Tonight, I'm especially troubled by Bush's veto of the anti-torture legislation on Friday and I'd like to hear your thoughts.
When I served in the Iraq War in 2003, I was a senior naval flight officer flying F-14D Tomcats. I led many missions over Iraq, including the first non-stealth strike of Baghdad in March, 2003 during "shock and awe." While flying over Iraq, I knew that there was a good chance that I could be shot down and captured by enemy forces.
I had been trained at SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape) school earlier in my career, and found out there what it was like to endure mild torture in a prison training environment, including waterboarding-like suffocation techniques. It wasn't a lot of fun. Ask any naval aviator about their SERE school stories, they'll tell you that waterboarding is torture.
In 2003, we knew what the Iraqis would do if they captured a Navy flyer. One of my friends had been shot down, captured and tortured by the Iraqis in 1991. I knew it wouldn't be pretty if one of us was captured.
I remember returning to my aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, the USS CONSTELLATION one night in 2003 after leading a mission over Iraq. I went to my stateroom and turned on CNN. I watched Iraqi troops as they searched through reeds with sticks along a canal, looking for a flyer that they thought had parachuted near the canal. It was strange to have just returned from Iraq, knowing how close I had come to being in that canal, instead of sitting in my stateroom watching watching CNN. Seeing the people who might be my captors tomorrow, on TV that night is a strange circumstance. I could tell by their fervor that the words "Geneva Convention" didn't mean a lot to them. I'd be lucky to even make it to a prison in Iraq in one piece.
At the time (this was long before Abu Ghraib and renditions were public knowledge) I thought how wonderful it was to serve a nation that set the gold-standard for treating our enemy combatants. How nice it was to serve a nation that believes in the rule of law.
Fast forward to 2005. As a legislative liaison for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I was asked to sit in the back of a meeting at the Pentagon and watch attorneys and civilian policy wonks for the Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) debate the merits of supporting legislation that would make the Army's field manual on interrgation techniques the new "gold-standard" for what can and can't be done to enemy combatants. I was sickened to watch these Bush-Republican civil servants argue for torture techniques. They somehow thought that torture would provide valuable intelligence. It doesn't.
This week, I wasn't surprised that Bush vetoed the legislation that would have made interrogation techniques limited to what was defined in the Army Field Manual. I was saddened. Saddened that the America that I fought for and risked my life for, a country that used to stand for something of importance, now stands for torture.
Friday was a sad day in America's history.
Next year will be better. We'll have a new Democratic president (I've endorsed Senator Barack Obama) and with your help, I will be serving in the U.S. Congress.
I will be the voice of experience on this issue. I'll be a voice of personal knowledge. I'll be a voice of leadership, compassion and integrity.
We'll change the law next year, when Bush is gone, and when this era of Republican incompetence is relegated to the history books.
Will you join me in my fight? Please ask me questions tonight and please contribute to our campaign for Congress and our fight to get a democrat elected to this open seat (and previously held Republican seat) in Northern Virginia.
Please visit my website at dougforcongress.com and consider volunteering and contributing to our campaign. Together, we will bring change to our nation.
I look forward to answering your questions live tonight at 8 pm e.s.t.
Please recommend this Diary and spread the word.
All my best,
Doug Denneny
Democratic Candidate
U.S. House of Representatives
Virginia's 11th CD
http://www.dougforcongress.com