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Torture: Right and Reality
Regardless of what you feel about this subject, regardless of what you believe is right, regardless of what is right, this is reality.
Kudos to Chris Cillizza for the analysis, for telling it like it is, no matter how uncomfortable this might have been for him to write, no matter how difficult this might be for some of us to read.
5 Responses to “Torture: Right and Reality”
I think those engaged in extracting information protecting Americans from terrorist attacks should be given an award as an expression of the gratitude of the American people. A lot of people feel that way. Too bad they never ask that question on these polls.
DaMav, imagine your teenage son or daughter naked and dog collared, humiliated, urinated and defecated on, cold, alone in the dark, beaten, hearing damaged for life by bullhorns, kept awake for weeks, then repeatedly drowned. Or imagine your kids being ordered to do such repulsive things to others. With no evidence against them.
That's what you defend. How noble.
but, but, it was all dlone to keep us safe—and in an attempt to justify the Iraq invasion
And, jut look at the wealth of information we got after the 243rd waterboarding—priceless!
I don't know why the results of this poll should come as any huge surprise, or why it would it be “uncomfortable” or “difficult” for anyone to write about.
I mean, what would you expect? It's totally human to want to put terrible, dark chapters in history — either one's own or the country's — behind once they are over. That doesn't mean Americans agree with what was done, or think it was right, or lawful. It also doesn't mean that Pres. Obama can't make the case for an investigation, and prosecutions if warranted. We've seen already, any number of times, how persuasive Obama can be when his heart and his passion are in it. The whole point of a leader is to make your case to the people, win them over and get their support, like Obama did with the stimulus bill. A leader does not run roughshod over public opinion, but neither does a leader fold his cards and give up just because the public does not yet see what he sees.
Isn't this just compounding the utter and abject shame of the Bush administration? Such responses concerning torture, were unimaginable, simply unimaginable, a decade ago, with majorities of frequent church goers considering torture acceptable in some circumstances, polls showing broad support of torturing prisoners, celebrities and commentators advocating for torture policies, DaMav's open expressions of pride above (and similar sentiments expressed ad nauseum in the blogosphere). Out of incompetence and venality and brutishness and cowardice, this is what the “moral leadership” of the Bush administration has wrought. What grievous and seemingly irreparable damage, what shame.