Torture

There are some folks who think that force, a.k.a. torture is a viable means to get information that may save lives, prevent an attack or enable the capture of alleged conspirators before they can execute terrorist’s acts.

The other side thinks no matter what, torture is inhumane, unethical, un-American, cruel and just plain wrong for a cultured and modern society to embrace.

We all know that the George W. Bush administration approved torture, although they won’t call it that, to elicit information from detainees in various secret and known prisons around the world.

Methods of torture:
1. Stress positions
2. Sleep deprivation
3. Small space confinement with insects
4. Nudity and degradation
5. Simulated drowning or water boarding

The US government through its Central Intelligence Agency conducted these acts and more with an understanding that it was legal and approved by presidential authority.

Some people are calling for accountability; so are some countries.

President Obama has said the CIA will not be subject to prosecution and we need to put this behind us.

Mr. President I disagree. We need to put this in front of us and address it, confront it, acknowledge it and prosecute it if need be so that it never happens again.

Past actions that America’s leaders sanctioned through illegal and immoral authority need to be adjudicated not abdicated to the dusty files of alleged wrongdoing and government cover-up.

Who is potentially culpable here? Let’s start at the top. Bush, Chaney, Rove, Rumsfeld, and former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee who is currently sitting on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. He was responsible for the legal parsing of language that enabled the excesses at Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo.

Culpability also extends to any individual who tortured even though they were told it was OK to do so and that includes the military and civilian doctors who monitored the prisoner abuse just short of death.

Morality, ethics and humane decency come from within, not from authority.

"I was only following orders", does not work in the United States of America.