‘I’m Ashamed We’re Even Having This Discussion’

In my introductory post I commented that I would mostly avoid political topics, but this one is too great to ignore. I just finished watching the documentary Torturing Democracy that greatly details our detainee program over the last 7 years. It hits all the points poignantly: the direct authorization from the highest levels; the warnings about legality from both civilian and military sources; the fact that most detainees had questionable involvement with Al Qaeda; and most damning of all, that the “programs” were strongly patterned on totalitarian regimes’ propaganda/punishment techniques instead of accurate intelligence gathering. I strongly recommend that everyone takes the time to watch the program, as the interviews are almost exclusively with people that were in high enough levels of government to have immense credibility and several of them were involved in trying to stop the problem.

I have kept relatively abreast of the information that was known about our policies, but I was blown away by the amount of direct evidence that the documentary presented that tied our highest offices to them…or at the very least, seeing the full extent over the course of an hour hit home in a way that years of leaks never did. It reminded me that the first change we need moving forward is to open up a tribunal and arrest those directly connected no matter how high or protected they are in the current Administration. There is no doubt that these people committed crimes that are directly against both domestic and international law and did so with full knowledge and multiple warnings. We have an obligation to investigate and prosecute breaches of the Geneva Convention as detailed in Art. 192.

“Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting Party has made out a prima facie case.

This is not about political motives, nor is it about “policy disagreements” as some argue. It is about the rule of law and has implications not only for our servicemen and women but the relationship between the Executive and Legislative Branches for decades to come. It is also about our standing in the world amongst both allies and enemies.

I have many friends from other countries, some of which have experienced the horrors of totalitarianism and war first hand. They are in near unanimous agreement that the United States has failed to use its power wisely and think that their home countries need to do more to stand up to us. And these are all people that are moderates, view themselves as allies and really like the US — sometimes more than their home country! What is interesting is that most of them don’t hold our transgressions against us, they hold our inability to admit or correct our mistakes against us. It is not the “far left” criticism that the United States does more harm than good (or that we are worse than other countries), it is that we have too much power and cannot keep our own house in order. With the economic crisis and forthcoming global shift in power, this is not merely a moral issue, it is one that will help determine our future standing in the world. Even now many countries, including some of our most stalwart allies, are holding conferences we are not invited to and openly discussing new regimes that would lower our influence on the rest of the world.

If we have any hope to maintain American Exceptionalism, we must prove that we can shed light on our own problems and resolve them justly. As they say in the documentary, we used techniques that SERE trained soldiers as needing to overcome and that were employed by “Totalitarian evil nation[s] with a complete disregard for human rights and the Geneva Convention.”
Or as Richard Armitage put it, “I’m ashamed we’re even having this discussion.” It is quite a stain on our nation’s history and as Shaun and Dr. E point out, one not confined to our military or intelligence services.