This is a call for comment here on your personal condemnation of waterboarding and other forms of torture used to procure our "safety" from harm that our enemies would do us. If we condone waterboarding in our name and supposedly to procure our safety, we offend the noblest of principles for which we could ever ask our soldiers to fight and die, the sanctity of an individual human life. What point is there in pursuing the enemy when the enemy is us, a nation that appears to have condoned waterboarding to procure its national retribution for the terrorism of extremists. Let it not be said that you condon the use of torture.
Has the public discourse on enhanced interrogation techniques informed or confused the public? Both. Is the public really only concerned with the safety of law abiding citizens? Seems like it. (See the previous blog entry for a review of some of the public discourse and the machinations of some who would foster the use of torture as useful, as in useful on the War on Terror.)
What about when the individual, me or you, is accused of not being loyal or law abiding? Well then, no. Should we be afforded protection from unlawful torture by our own government? Yes.
In this representative democracy, can the electorate ever trust again the adoption of enhanced interrogation techniques by the military and intelligence agencies of the federal government? Looks like we are trusting them to do so. Can we ever again leave certain individuals in office when they condone and justify the use of torture? Well, some of us can claim we did vote the bums's surrogates out of office by electing other guys and gals. Must we be prepared to call for impeachment of any official who condones torture or justifies it in a public forum? Yes.
To my knowledge, President Barach Obama and Senator John McCain have not endorsed holding any persons responsible for the adoption of policies permitting the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, but rather look to the present and future in which the values of this country pertaining to the dignity and respect afforded the individual are not and shall not be compromised by the use of torture. See note 1 below for restraint of both our President and an eloquent stance of a former prisoner of war himself, McCain.
Of late the phrase "American exceptionalism" has been framed as one of high regard for the rights of individuals, even those persons perceived as guilty of heinous offense, to be free from torture inflicted by those agents of our government purportedly acting in our behalf. See note 2 below for a specific example of true note worthiness.
Do we Americans embrace moral turpitude? Do we want the historical record to one day say that we as a people looked the other way on torture of prisoners under the control and dominion of our government and its agents (which would include other countries who would conduct torture at our behest and in our behalf to gain intelligence valuable to procuring the national security of our country)? No, we do not.
Our Senate Armed Services Committee, among others, did obtain evidence and testimony of the torture and abuse of prisoners during the War on Terror and did report to the American people its findings of unlawfulness in the conduct of interrogation of prisoners and otherwise as means of subjugation and punishment of captives.
Do we want this record to say that the practices of our government in the execution of this recent war on terror were, even if immoral, necessary to procure our safety? No, we do not!
Let all who are charged with our Nation's security know that we the American people do not endorse torture, especially in its adoption as utiliterarian, a usefulness which argues that enhanced interrogation techniques, however denominated, are to be morally condoned because effective in procuring accurate information. In this blog see the previous article on the issue of flawed scientific acceptance of enhanced interrogation techniques. Furthermore, grounds for removal from public office, by impeachment or other legal means, shall always and forever be inclusive of authorizing, condoning, and utilizing torture as in the national interest as a means to procure public safety and the nation's security.
In those instances in which enhanced interrogation techniques induce learned helplessness the techniques shall not include torture even if the Red Chinese were able to extract confessions from captured American pilots due to the use of torture. That if speed is of the essence in obtaining information, that short cuts to obtain that information by means of torture can never be permitted nor condoned. Let all know that we the American people embracing our heritage of individual right, and governmental limitation in the face of that right, shall pay the personal price and embrace the sacrifice inherent in perserving our values and cherished way of life. We will not be stampeded into forsaking our values enshrining human dignity and decency in the treatment of individuals.
Former Vice-President Richard Cheney and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey are hereby, by we the American people, censured for misleading, inaccurate, and harmful defense of immoral techniques, specifically water boarding among other methods used for enhance interrogation techniques which are categorically torture. We condemn these persons and others who deem the utilitarian outcome as moral justification of immoral means to procure our safety. We shall not permit a denigration of the sacred duty to defend our country by the use of torture, at least not while perserving our way of life and the sanctity of human life. We can not allow either of these two men to in effect argue that we as a nation had to torture a person held captive in order to save the life or lives of others without our censure of them for doing so.
Please join others in signing this condemnation of former Vice-President Richard Cheney and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey for endorsing enhanced interrogation techniques which include acts of torture such as waterboarding. Please forward to all your friends who share this view of our country's respect for individual human life.
Notes.
1. See Executive Order entitled Ensuring Lawful Interrogations issued by President Obama on January 22, 2009 shortly upon taking his oath of office. Also, see "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at A ll,
(The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).
2. See especially McCain's position: "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at A ll, (The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).
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