Ashby 2008

When I read about the CIA having destroyed video tapes of interrogations of a terrorist, my first thought was that I was glad.

I certainly don’t blame the CIA for wanting to protect itself. This is an administration that has proven time and again a willingness to duck responsibility for its actions and allow underlings to be punished for following orders. What the guards did at Abu Ghraib was terrible, but does anyone doubt that they weren’t following at least vague orders? Does anyone doubt that someone up the chain of command ordered the guards to figure out a way to dehumanize and scare the prisoners, as a way of softening them up for interrogation? Of course, the guards went to jail not the deciders.

To my understanding, what the CIA did on the tapes was allowed for under written presidential directive – the agents weren’t breaking the law as it was understood by them at the time. Nevertheless, looking at pictures or video of even mild torture is surely a visceral experience that churns the pit of your stomach and makes you want to insure that someone is punished. A person at the CIA rightly recognized that Cheney wasn’t going to stand up in court and take responsibility for the torture – it would have been a low-level CIA employee going to jail. The destruction of the tapes, in some way, is yet another example of the costs of an administration that lacks the moral character to take responsibility for its actions.

In addition, I have to say, from the standpoint of the United States I am also happy the tapes were destroyed. I didn’t want to feel the visceral feeling I had when I first saw the Abu Ghraib pictures. I certainly don’t want to feel the churning in my stomach that would have resulted from seeing fellow Americans torture people, even if it might have been just mild torture. I don’t need video to know that what was done was wrong, nor will our country need video to remember enough of this to insure that it never happens again. No President before has ever ordered torture, and no President after this President will ever order torture again – even Republicans have secretly come to the realization of just how bad in how many ways this Administration is. I cannot believe that Rudi Giuliani, if elected through some implosion of the Democratic Party, would continue the use of torture. Either quietly or loudly, the use of torture will be discontinued in January 2009.

I would like to let this blight on our country, like the Bush Administration, fade into history, remembering just enough to insure we never again entrust our country to someone of such weak moral character. Once Bush is out of office, we will again go back to being a country that believes that all men and women are endowed by their creators with certain inalienable rights, and that even mild torture is an affront to God. I ask again, wistfully, what happened to my Republican Party?

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 8th, 2007 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.