Torture

The release of documents this week by the government reveal in greater detail the torture methods permitted by the Bush Administration, and it is deplorable. The United States is histories greatest nation and from its founding has been held to a higher standard; we are the "City on the Hill." The actions permitted under Bush and Cheney are illegal and in violation of human rights. The West won the Cold War by depicting the the Soviet Unions failure on human rights, and now we violated that and lost our moral authority. I do not know if the United States will ever regain our moral standing after the release of these documents, but we can begin to make amends by prosecuting those responsible. Not necessarily those who carried out the orders, though they should have checked their own moral compass, but policy makers and lawyers who manipulated words in order to permit torture (you cannot hide torture behind the term enhanced interrogation techniques.)

Andrew Sullivan wrote a scathing rant that I mostly agree with. Here is the money quote for me

"This is what Bush and Cheney truly achieved in their tragic response to 9/11: two terribly failed, brutally expensive wars, the revival of sectarian warfare and genocide in the Middle East, the end of America's global moral authority, the empowerment of Iran's and North Korea's dictatorships, and the nightmares of Gitmo and Bagram still haunting the new administration.

But what they did to the culture - how they systematically dismantled core American values like the prohibition on torture and respect for the rule of law - is the worst and most enduring of the legacies."

To read the entire post click here.