The current administration’s taste for torture bothers me. For a country that claims to be so morally superior to so-called “rouge” states like the former Iraq or Iran, condoning secretive prisons, abductions of foreign nationals who might be terrorists, and water boarding as an interrogation technique are things that one would expect to find in a vicious military dictatorship with no respect for human dignity or life.
A country that claims to be better than its enemies doesn’t employ the same tactics its enemies use.
Isn’t it ironic (in the bad way) that the United States government condemns dictators for killing or torturing their own citizens yet has no qualms about throwing people into that legal black hole called Guantanamo Bay? Maybe it’s because they aren’t always American citizens. I suppose it’s perfectly fine to torture Pakistanis or Saudis, as long as you don’t touch WASPs. Of course, there’s still nothing right about that. It’s not about who you torture (er, “interrogate”). It’s the torturing in general. Isn’t America above that sort of thing? I was led to believe that we were better than the terrorists. Better than Saddam. Better than Islamic fundamentalists who kidnap journalists and behead them while the Internet is watching. Isn’t that the popular line used by the current administration? We’re the good guys, right?
Good guys don’t torture. Secret prisons and abductions are a characteristic of fascist governments. I don’t care what the government says: I am in no way safer because some innocent man from Afghanistan was tortured until he confessed to a crime he didn’t commit. We’re trading the threat of terrorists bombing our cities for the threat of our own government kidnapping us while we sleep because we used the words “anthrax” and “bomb” in an email to a friend in Russia. (“Hey man, that Anthrax concert was the bomb!”)
I honestly can’t wait for 2008. We need a change away from secret orders issued behind a closed door. We need an open government that doesn’t hide things from Congress or the American people. We need a government that lives up to its claim to be the good guys.
