President Obama has decided not to release the photos of alleged abuse of detainees by American operatives. The reason claimed by the Obama Administration is that the disclosures would further inflame anti-American opinion and put our troops in greater danger.
Our troops are already in great danger given the number of coffins coming home from the two theatres of war.
We already have anti-American opinion all over the world because of our previous policies that ignited the hatred against us.
What did we expect? Forgiveness? Tolerance? Love?
We are not perfect. We are not without responsibility for our actions even though a former governmental authority for the purpose of gleaning information, inappropriately and with suspect legal language, approved unethical methods of interrogation.
In Congress the other day there was testimony on this issue and Instead of calling it “torture”, someone called it “enhanced interrogation”.
Come on! Who are we fooling? Enhanced interrogation is torture. Torture is not something that America condones or does in times of national stress or should do in times of war.
Torture was never our public policy until the Bush/Chaney administration promulgated the fear following 9/11 and usurped power by decree.
America’s greatness comes from the admission of wrongdoing not from hiding it in the nomenclature of protection and what might happen.
The admission of wrongdoing does not make us weaker. It does not make us less patriotic. It does not make us less powerful in the eyes of the world and us. It makes us stronger and nobler for the public admission of a wrong is an acknowledgement and condemnation of the nationalistic ego and fear that brought us to this condition in the first place.
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About Me
- Rolland G. Smith
- Journalist and author of five books of poetry and commentaries. Quiet Musings, Encore - The Poetry of Nature, Stone Wisdom and Naka-Poems from the center and Consider this...(commentaries) I am a sojourner in the spiritual realms of understanding.
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1 comment:
I respect your point of view concerning the release photos detailing the alleged abuse of detainees by American Operatives. I am also well pleased that you commented that the United States’ “greatness comes from the admission of wrongdoing.” The Unites States has long committed acts of torture against opposing forces, and, as you correctly stated, it was not a “Public Policy” until our prior administration christened this to be so in late 2001. Torture, on any level, is wrong. Our current President has said this much and I applaud him for it. Our former President, though he has never publicly admitted it (and I doubt he ever would, even on his death bed), in his heart of hearts, knows it is wrong.
America is great. She became even greater when our President admitted the existence of a “Public Policy” of torture, that this policy was accelerated by the former administration and that the “Public Policy” on torture is wrong, will not tolerated and needs to be corrected through more than mere words. I do not see where there is any benefit to releasing the photos of alleged abuse of detainees by American operatives to the media, and I agree with the stance of the Obama Administration. It is my hope that our President will convey more that mere rhetoric on torture and will act swiftly when such actions are detected. However, only the future knows what will happen when Torture again rears it ugly head.
Thank you for continuing to encourage us, as readers, to acutely examine the actions of the past, their influence on the present, and the consequences that will result in the future if we do not intercede.
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