Another great editorial from the Fayetteville Observer, which includes the areas that contain Fort Bragg (Army), Camp Lejeune (Marines) and Seymour Johnson:
Just say no: ‘Abstinence only’ is the sole honorable torture policy.
April 18, 2008
The capture of Saddam Hussein, we wrote in December 2003, was a great gift to Iraqis because it meant Saddam could “never again resume his rule of madness and torture.” How far we have drifted from our moral moorings.
Six months later, the spotlight swung to Lynndie England and Charles Graner, whose sick activities at Abu Ghraib their higher-ups dismissed as comparable to a fraternity hazing. It got worse as it became clear Abu Ghraib was no isolated incident.
Yet grim-faced officials said prisoner abuse was spontaneous, not something that originated in Washington. The revelations kept coming, even as President Bush repeated his mantra, “We do not torture,” “America does not torture” — while Vice President Cheney pushed Congress for an exemption to a proposed ban on torture, which is already banned by international law and treaties the United States has signed.
In recent weeks, what have we learned? For two years, the administration acted on what it now concedes is a legally baseless opinion by Cheney’s Justice Department yes-man, John Yoo, who said anything the executive branch does in pursuit of terror suspects is constitutionally OK.
We know Cheney and others high in the pecking order organized meetings that discussed and adopted torture tactics (including waterboarding). We know the president absented himself from those meetings to give himself plausible deniability in case someone blew the whistle and subpoenas started flying. We have his personal admission that he knew of the meetings and the subject matter. “And I approved,” he added last week.
Who is fooled by the pseudo-legalisms and circumlocution?
No one, least of all Iraqis whose misery was supposed to end with the capture of Saddam. It lies about torture, leaving low-level personnel to take the rap for decisions made in or just outside the Oval Office.
When lies don’t work anymore, it insists that all this activity it went to such great lengths to keep secret was perfectly proper all along. It exposes its own troops and diplomats to danger by trying to make torture seem respectable. Then it wonders why others cock an eyebrow when Americans turn the conversation to exhortations about values and human rights.
We can fix this. But not without stopping the torture, and our tortured defense of it.