Torture Sucks, Dick!

The United States of America has in its two-hundred-plus year history been forced repeatedly to hew back to its ideals when it gets off track. Whether by a missive written by slaves during the American Revolution including themselves in that “all men that [were] created equal” concept; or the thrashing of Southern secession by Union Troops; or the Seneca Falls Convention and the Iron Angels’ protests for suffrage; or imprisoned Japanese Americans saying NoNo; or Rosa Parks and Martin King sitting and standing for their just deserts; or Cesar Chavez refusing to eat until migrant farm workers had bread; or Barack Obama being elected President of the United States to cleanse the infested wounds of disaster capitalism and war profiteering and economic tsunami that was the Bush/Cheney administration. (and now Attorney General Eric Holder is opening investigations of the torturers who went “beyond their guidelines”)

Like one of the stubborn ghouls in a bad scary movie, the former Vice President just won’t go away.  He’s already pushed a devastating agenda on the United States and by extension, the world.  He’s already authorized assassination from the office of the Vice President.  He’s already waged a “War on Terror” which we should truly call a “War on the Constitution”, as he claimed that the VP is not part of the executive branch of the government, even as he gathered more and more power to the executive branch and refused to be held accountable.  He was the first and loudest to mouth the fictitious claim in public that Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11, and that the invasion of that country was justified.  And he’s been lying more since he left office, saying that “torture worked and kept us safe” in order to cover his crimes and the crimes of others.

Dick Cheney thinks torture is okay. So does his daughter. Unfortunately, they aren’t brave enough to stand up and simply say that. Instead they hint that its legal, that its okay, that its American to do.  It’s obvious that they believe it, because they won’t stop torturing the American people – they’re on television or in the newspaper daily screeching about how the current administration is making us as a country less safe, and how holding them or the people who worked for them responsible is “bad.”  Simply put, they’re wrong.

Torture is bad.  It’s against the American Way.  And it doesn’t work or keep us safe.

the terror within

Listening to the President this morning, it became clear that he is fighting the war against terrorists on at least three fronts, all inherited from the Bush Administration.  The first is obviously in the biblically important country where some people believe lies the earthly location of the Garden of Eden, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Iraq.  The second is where many an empire, from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union have ground to a halt and been defeated by patriots wielding scythes and stones, Afghanistan.

The third is in Washington, D.C., against the proponents of terror and torture led by Colonel Jessup himself, former Vice-President Richard Cheney.  This crowd of malcontents is braying loudly in an attempt to cover its tracks, to avoid responsibility and prosecution, and working to make our country less safe by distracting the mechanisms and machinery of government with unfounded accusations and claims which have and continue to be proven false.

The former Vice-President, notorious for his silence during his time in office, has taken it upon himself to be the voice of unreason, calling for the release of memos that destroy his arguments and refute his claims; making speeches about keeping the country safe when his tenure saw the terrorists attacks of September 11th; and telling anyone who will listen (or give him a microphone) that he did a good job and he’d do it again.

This third front is almost more problematic than the first two.  As commander in chief, President Obama can do as he sees fit in order to wage those campaigns and has pledged to follow his understanding of our American ideals to do so.  This is neither easy nor simple, but it is clear.

On the third front, though, his opponents refuse to a) tell the truth, b) acknowledge their mistakes, c) provide relevant support for their positions, d) argue the fundamental issue of torture.  They don’t even like the word.  They prefer “enhanced interrogation techniques” to hide their actions.  As I said a couple of days ago, this is simply more lubrication for their violation of our national identity and ideals.

This third front is not true philosophical difference.  For those who feel that torture is okay, and that it is necessary to protect our country, that is a conversation.  This third front refuses to engage, acting more like al Qaeda and the guerillas firing on US troops in the hot zones than the loyal opposition.  This machiavellian manipulation of misinformation is how Guantanamo Bay became a torture cell, owned and operated by the United States.  It’s how we as citizens ended up with blood under our fingernails and towels jammed down our throats.

Waterboarding is torture and I feel like Dick Cheney is doing it to me with his speeches, the way he ordered it done to “the terrorists”, the way Jay Bybee covered with his lawyer-speak.

That’s the terror within.

Obama defends plan to close Gitmo

Cheney slams Obama in speech

distraction

“it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

The argument over Nancy Pelosi’s knowledge and feud with the CIA is a distraction.  It is an attempt to practice some sleight of hand to turn our collective head away from looking for the truth.  By her own admission, she knew something.  And by my estimation, she should be held accountable for her actions, too.

The true conversation to be had is whether or not the United States should torture its enemies.

The answer is no.

There is also conversation on how to investigate those who knowingly circumvented both United States’ and international law in order to engage in torture in the name of the people of the United States.  Vice-President Cheney has argued that what he and others knowingly did and have admitted has kept our country safe.

That is beside the point.  It was wrong.  And Nancy Pelosi’s ridiculousness makes her sound like she’s covering up that she knew about the torture, that she acquiesced due to political pressures, and that she’s trying to save her own behind.

She’s a distraction, much like Dick (and his daughter, and Steve Schmidt) which takes real wind out of the sails of John Conyers and Patrick Leahy, who are on a path to investigate who violated the human condition in the name of national ascendance.

Stop talking about her and talk about truth.

GOP leader on Pelosi’s claim

Boehner, McConnell Cheer Cheney’s Public Activism

the human condition

“ . . . this camp is the ash and soot of human shame.”

-Silvia, The Surrender Tree, p. 96

There is a problem with all this conversation about declassification of secrets, about ‘enhanced interrogation’ v. torture, about actionable intelligence and false leads, about enemies, enemy combatants, immunity or prosecution, whether to move forward or to look back, innocent victims and propaganda. Those who argue that the President is wrong to release information are arguing the wrong case. They are trying to justify torture because it “kept us safe.” They are arguing that the ends justify the means. Cain thought so, too.

As a nation, our greatest strength has been the few words penned by a slaveholder when he believed that his humanity was questioned, “all . . . are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” This belief founded a nation of justice, not just us. And so the debate out what our government did in our name is about whether we are who we say we are, or are we who President Chavez and Comrade Castro say we are; do we believe in the ideals of freedom and equality or do we believe in “robbin’ old folks and makin’ a dash”?

Are we invested in the human condition, or are we simply interested in the American condition?

As a patriot, I have always believed the former. President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld have expressly stated and acted as the latter.

When we improve the human condition, then we automatically improve the American condition. This is the argument. It is the same argument that Dr. King used, that Sojourner Truth used, that Cesar Chavez used, that Thomas Jefferson used. Whether or not we have always lived up to that investment in the human condition is not up for debate, because we obviously haven’t. But whether we should is always up for debate, because when we stop speaking about it, when we stop arguing about it, when we assume that we’re all working toward an improved human condition, those simply interested in their own condition will steal our soul.

Senator John McCain tweeted that we should, “urge the President to avoid finger pointing and move forward . . .” I would say that holding usurpers responsible for their actions, for the stain on our national honor, for besmirching, “the woman [he] didn’t know he loved . . . until [he] was parted from her company,” is necessary, and is more important than simply “finger pointing.”

There are many petty despots around the world, whose actions serve only themselves and their coteries, who see as weakness an investment in the human condition. President Bush and his administration, through their use of torture and their feeble attempts to cover themselves with mumble-mouthed legalese have placed themselves squarely in those ranks. But I refuse to go with them.

I refuse to not hold them accountable. I do not believe the American condition is that important.

We must reinvest in the human condition.

Torture and the Problem of Constitutional Evil

‘No one is above the law’ Holder says of torture inquiry

Boehner: Memos Outline “Torture Techniques”

Obama waffled on torture

McCain warns the president of a possible ‘witch hunt’

Rice, Cheney OK’d CIA use of waterboarding

Pakistan sends troops to area grabbed by Taliban

Yemen Dispute Slows Closing of Guantanamo

Justice is not retribution

There is a false story being spun by the White House, being touted by the Republicans, that says if we take a look back, if we bring to justice those who tortured and who were the architects of torture in our name, that we are seeking retribution. This is like the false choice stated by Dick Cheney that says either we torture or the United States is not safe.

On the same team?

When someone breaks the law, the President does not have the authority to decide whether or not to prosecute. That person, if there is reasonable suspicion and probable cause, should be arrested, tried and found innocent or guilty based on the evidence. Nowhere in our criminal code does it have an asterisk, or a caveat, that allows for President Obama to interfere.

The role of the executive branch is to enforce and execute the laws. If we are a nation of laws, and the president is the chief law enforcement officer, then those laws should be enforced. As much as I like and support the President, he and his administration are wrong to be ostriches here.

There are still people fighting extradition for war crimes committed during World War II. The people responsible for torture at Abu Ghraib are in jail right now. Those responsible for the atrocities at Guantanamo Bay should be brought to justice.

It has nothing to do with retribution, Mr. President.

Two al Qaeda leaders waterboarded 266 times

Sunday Talking Heads

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times In One Month

The Torturer’s Manifesto

Bush Administration Terrorism Memos

Obama begins leading American in a new direction

President Obama’s Statement on the Memos

No, Mr. President. I Won’t Look The Other Way

“In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”

-President Barack Obama, April 16, 2009

I concur with President Obama most of the time.  But he’s wrong today, and he’s messing it up for everyone.  The memorandum from President Bush’s administration that he released today outline torture: the decision to authorize, the proscriptions and applications, the “limitations” and durations of.  To quote Howard Feinman, they are “a window into a heart of darkness.”

Part of my support for him until this time was the necessity for rectification, for redirection, for a return to the ideals that fundamentally support the United States of America.  And my support of him was based on the deeply held belief that CHANGE meant holding people responsible for the decisions they chose to make, the actions they chose to take, and the values that those actions expressed.

Releasing the memos with the right hand, and exonerating the torturers with the left hand while claiming that he is “looking forward not looking back” is an offense against those ideals which he has espoused almost as great as the former president claiming divine authority to invade Iraq.

No, Mr. President.  I won’t look the other way.

Frankly, I’m embarrassed that you are.  There are prosecutors in Spain who understand that the treatment of people in United States’ custody under the Bush Administration, under the purview of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales and John Yi and George W. Bush, was torture and constituted criminal activity, if not crimes against humanity.

Forgive the profanity . . . it is the result of believing that truth, justice, honor, integrity and equality are not simply cool logos on t-shirts, but the reason that my ancestors fought, bled and died on these and other shores.  And those ideals were shat upon by the elected leader of this nation and his coterie for eight years.

I supported you, Mr. President, because I believed that you were intent upon restoring if not those perfected ideals, at least domestic and international responsibility to pursue those ideals.  Today’s duel decisions call into question that intent.  Not because it is simply a decision you’ve made that I disagree with.  I don’t believe that any president would make decisions I agree with 100% of the time unless I were elected to that office myself, which is obviously not the case.

Today’s decisions literally give cover to the prison guards, literally allow the torturers to continue on the payroll that I fund, and leave the ideals for which I struggle and teach each day laying on the floor of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay with their heads bashed in, and leave me gasping for air wondering how to teach my children about justice, about morality, about right and wrong when one of the primary examples I use each day cowers behind rhetoric of progress while allowing regress to fester with impunity.

Loving my country and being a patriot means speaking truth to power, and yours is as has often been said, the most powerful office in the world.  We as a people cannot afford to simply look forward.  That is the ridiculous attitude that lets idiots claim racism no longer exists because you were elected.  Releasing the document which catalogues torture without holding the torturers accountable is moral cowardice, which means that they did the right thing if only because they got away with it.  You have become accomplice after the fact by your failure to hold them accountable.

It is important that we move forward, that we look to the future and the reconstruction of our nation.  But it is equally as important that those responsible for the current state of the union face the consequences of their actions.

No, Mr. President.  I won’t look the other way.

And neither should you.

Bush-era interrogation memo: No torture without ‘severe pain’ intent

Rights groups criticize CIA immunity on interrogations

Future of the U.S. depends on torture accountability

Memos reveal harsh CIA interrogation methods

President Obama’s Statement on the Memos

La Moralidad de España

It seems that Spain now occupies the moral position that the United States purports to want back. Not only were they the only country to prosecute Augusto Pinochet for the crimes he committed against humanity in Chile, but they are now indicting members of the Bush Administration for torture against Spanish citizens at the United States\’ facility in Guantanamo Bay.

I am a supporter of President Obama, and I pray for him currently as he wrestles with his conscience for giving the order to kill the pirates in order to save the captain. I think he was right, but that doesn’t make the decision or the order easy. However, I am disappointed that he hasn’t put more umph! into investigating and prosecuting those responsible for abuses of power and torture. Update: President Obama just released some of President Bush’s memorandum regarding torture.

While there are members of Congress (Representative Conyers, Senator Leahy) who are pushing the current administration to investigate the former, the President remains steadfastly, albeit quietly, against. The door to the past has not shut, though, and when North Korea can honestly say that they are treating our two incarcerated journalists “better than Guantanamo,” we have a problem that won’t be solved by ignoring the past.

While I’ve visited Spain, and found Barcelona to be a wonderful city, I’ve never wanted to live there. I do, though, admire their willingness to pursue the ideals that we espouse. Now it’s our turn.

He kept US safe

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President Bush and his administration decided to keep the United States safe.

A little late, but a good move nonetheless.

Of course, having failed to do so on September 10 was irrelevant.  The briefing titled, “Bin Laden determined to strike in US” was forgotten or ignored.  So the United States invaded Afghanistan, failed to capture or kill the ringleader of the attacks, partially destroyed a repressive, Islamo-fascist group called the Taliban, and then moved on to invade Iraq under the auspices of being the military backup for the United Nations, an organization so respected by our government that we were the largest debtor nation, owing dues of close to half a billion dollars.  But they’ve kept us safe . . .

What we did find in Afghanistan were informants who turned in other people they knew, some terrorists, most not, to our armed forces in exchange for money.  And those unfortunates were thrown in dark holes called detention centers, which President Bush on his magical history tour claimed “kept us safe.”

He and his people authorized torture in order to “keep us safe.”

They deviated from the moral high ground that our country has always espoused (not necessarily lived up to, but espoused nonetheless) to keep US safe.

But, according to the CIA, some of the people treated to Bush/Cheney hospitality and then released actually didn’t like the United States when they left, so they took up arms against our country.  Imaging that.  People were kidnapped, held, “interrogated”, released, and they had some aggression toward their captors.  That doesn’t sound too safe . . .

Turned in by someone I know to a foreign army for $5000.  Taken away from home, and held without charges or opportunity to confront my accusers for a couple of years.  Released and exported like cattle, dropped off in a country where people hate my captors, and given the opportunity for payback.

I’d be fighting, too.  And those people wouldn’t be safe at all.

Now the same people who supported the camps like Gitmo are claiming that President Obama is doing the wrong thing by shutting it down.  Actually behaving as if we have a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that reflect the values we hold dear and espouse as a nation is considered unsafe?

The noises they’re making about, “if we’re attacked, it’s his fault,” totally fail to take into account two obvious facts:

1.     There are already people who were held and released back on the front lines attacking us; and

2.     The innocent people who have been held without trial and interrogated now have a pretty good reason to hate us.

From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay, the lack of moral leadership and the authorization of torture by the Bush Administration recruited terrorists for the “far flung networks of hatred and violence,” that President Obama and his administration are left to deal with, and put some of our troops and intelligence operatives on pretty shaky ground.

But president bush kept us safe . . .

What’s next for Gitmo detainees?

Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US

U.S. uses dues to push reform

Obama orders Gitmo closed.  Now the hard part.

Security experts skeptical on Gitmo detainee report

What’s next for Guantanamo Bay detainees?

Bush: I would have done some things differently

Detainee went from Gitmo to al Qaeda

Learning the Lessons of Augusto Pinochet

For many years, Augusto Pinochet was the king of all he surveyed.  A brutal tyrant and dictator, he enjoyed the support of the United States and Great Britain, having risen to power with the explicit backing and support of the Central Intelligence Agency as he “battled communism and socialism” in Chile.  On September 11, 1973, he led a military coup of the democratically elected president of Chile, assassinating him in the process of establishing a dictatorship that saw free markets run rampant, thousands of people tortured and murdered, and the world turning a blind eye.

Fast forward twenty-five years, after he’d left power and traveled the world out of medical necessity.  He was arrested in Great Britain on international human rights charges, and lived out his life like a hunted animal, chased from court to court for the sake of justice, for restitution of his crimes and the blood on his hands, for all of the disappeared and the maimed who live with his horrors to this day.

Then there is Manuel Noriega, currently sitting in a US prison as a prisoner of war after his conviction on drug charges.  His usefulness to the United States finished, he is wanted in France to stand trial for crimes under his regime in Panama and is fighting to be “returned to his homeland” to live in some type of luxury predicated on the theft of millions from the country while he was in power.

I hear many people in the United States calling for President-elect Obama to order an investigation into the actions of the Bush administration, even before he is sworn into office.  They’ve mistaken the concept of transparency for immediacy.  Without any authority to do so, they would like President-elect Obama and perhaps Attorney General-designate Holder to signal preemptively that the president and vice president among others will be investigated for the atrocities they’ve committed like Gitmo.  Obviously, though justifiably outraged, these people have never played poker.  The President-elect is not going to tip his hand, like Representative John Conyers has done.

Like Augusto Pinochet, President Bush is under the mistaken impression that simply because he says it is so, what he is doing and has done is legal, and worse, morally right.  He and Dick will undoubtedly end up like Pinochet, arrogant enough to sit in their opulence, their ill-gotten gains, believing that there will be no calling to account for their atrocious acts against humanity, from Iraq to Guantanamo Bay to the 9^th ward in New Orleans.  Like Noriega, they will one day be languishing in a cell with no light at the end of the tunnel but the door to another courtroom.

Pinochet died, hated, alone, a shell in which evil once took up residence, and fled once the shell was used.  George Bush, a C student at best, obviously didn’t learn that lesson.  Dick Cheney, a little more academic intelligence, but less moral sense, didn’t learn those lessons.

But they will.

Bush: I would have done some things differently

Courts try to decide what to do with Manuel Noriega

Detainee tortured, says US official

Bush: President’s priority is preventing attack

Arianna Huffington: Moving forward doesn’t mean you can’t also look back

Sleeper Bill of the Month: Our Own Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Bush to give farewell address

He Hasn’t Got Any Clothes On

The 43^rd President of the United States, George Walker Bush, is leading a procession of fools.  And like the people lining the parade admiring the Emperor’s New Clothes, we are all staring and staring without saying anything.  When the President is in Iraq, a country he authorized and ordered invaded, and gets shoes thrown at his head, his response is “I don’t know why he did that.”  Really, Mr. President?  How about the invasion of his country by a foreign power?  How about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi war dead?  How about the failure to stop the looting of Iraq by American companies with ties to your Vice-President?  How about Guantamo?  How about Abu Ghraib?  Are you sure, Mr. President, that you don’t know why he did that?

President Bush and Vice-President Cheney don’t seem to realize that they are “governing” in the age of YouTube and bloggers.  This magical history tour that they are taking, wandering the globe and the teleshpere lying about what they’ve said and done over the last eight years, acknowledging that they’ve approved and condoned torture, re-writing their words, actions, motivations, inactions, invasions, deregulations and evil doings needs to catch up to them quickly.  They don’t seem to realize that the world is moving on without them, in spite of them, in order to correct their violently malicious actions.

And it doesn’t appear that the mainstream media (MSM) is about to be the ones asking hard questions.  CNN’s Candy Crowley let President Bush sit there and say, “so what [if Al-Qaeda] moved to Iraq after we invaded?”  Vice-President Cheney actually lied (again) and said that he never corroborated the connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq publicly in support of the invasion, and that he thought water-boarding was an appropriate form of interrogation, despite the fact that it is torture, and torture is against United States’ and international law. Update:  And Condoleeza Rice is now dancing to the same tune.

Watching the news night after night, I feel like the people on the camera and the people behind the camera have very little to do with what has actually happened in the world in the last eight years.  They are spinning tops, talking heads, not really asking questions to find truth and report it, but merely playing with words coming out of their mouths to continue garnering advertising dollars.  So, I’ll say it:

President Bush, you lied to the United States in the wake of a horrible tragedy on our shores in order to further an economic agenda which depends on disaster and hid under a blanket of moral superiority made of cloth your couldn’t see.  You have lurched from tragedy to tragedy, cloaking yourself in biblical terms without having understood that the message is one of personal responsibility and communal accountability.  You have failed as a leader, and no amount of smiling and snickering in interviews as your presidency draws down will shield you from the war crimes trial you should face, and the judgement your surely will.

Vice-President Cheney, you have over the course of your career been building to the treacherous and murderous pillaging of the planet beginning with Iraq, and continuing with Hurricane Katrina, burrowing through the financial “meltdown” into parts hitherto unknown and best left that way.  You have hidden in a hole, and like Kronos, sought to manipulate others to do your evil works and dastardly deeds, only to reemerge and spew more venom with a smile.

Citizens of the United States, Citizens of the World, don’t fall down the memory hole.  Democracy looks different when viewed close up.  We must remain cognizant, remember what has gone before in order to guard against the amnesia that time inflicts upon the group consciousness.  It is our responsibility, as we enjoy our rights to continually insure that the privileged few never again usurp the collective good.  ”Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.”

But among the crowds a little child suddenly gasped out, “But he hasn’t got anything on.” And the people began to whisper to one another what the child had said. “He hasn’t got anything on.” “There’s a little child saying he hasn’t got anything on.” Till everyone was saying, “But he hasn’t got anything on.” The Emperor himself had the uncomfortable feeling that what they were whispering was only too true. 

The Emperor Hasn’t Got Any Clothes On.

Iraqi reporter throws shoes at Bush in Baghdad

Bush shoe-thrower elicits editorial reactions

Condoleeza Rice talks success, failures of the last 8 years

How many Iraqis have died since the US invasion in 2003?

Bush on auto bailout, the war in Iraq, shoe-throwing reporter

Cheney: Uncut and Uncompromising

British troops to leave Iraq by July

Obama picks ex-Iowa governor, Colorado Senator for cabinet

Vice-President for Torture