This day should not pass without acknowledging the lead editorial in this morning’s New York Times: Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses. It points out, among other things, that
Any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos.
It also points out that “many more names could be considered, including Jose Rodriguez Jr., the C.I.A. official who ordered the destruction of [interrogation] videotapes; the psychologists who devised the torture regimen; and the C.I.A. employees who carried out that regimen.” But one name it doesn’t mention, which stumps me, is that of George W. Bush, aka the Bullshitter-in-Chief and the President With His Head Up His Ass, whose rep is lately being upholsterized as a warm and comfy noble warrior.
I too was struck by the Times’ editorial. It is an unusual day when a nation’s paper of record calls for the indictment of the Vice President and numerous other high officials. And worse, for torture, of all things.
One really wants to believe in the Times, and the article inspired me to read the bios of the Editorial Board’s members – all distinguished and interesting people it would be wonderful to know. I felt elated for a moment, then questions and thoughts about the reality of the situation began to sink in. Why was the Times so late in its vigorous opposition to the torture? Why didn’t it vigorously call for a stop to the torture while it was happening, and in a sustained and insistent manner? Why did the Times publish this editorial when there is no chance these people will actually be indicted? Why does the Times not discuss possible avenues for the perpetrators to be indicted?
Troubling answers come to mind. The USA has more soldiers and agents intervening in other countries than all the rest of the world put together. If the USA condones torture, then the standard is set for its own soldiers and agents to be tortured. So it’s best for the USA to do its torturing, and when the presumed need is over, denounce torture and tell everyone it is immoral. So that’s why the Senate and the Times are taking the “high ground” only after the so-called war on terror is over. We’ve finished our torturing, so now it’s time to go back to the stance that it should be universally forbidden. What better propaganda organ to publish this specious turn around that the seemingly august New York Times?
Thanks for your comment. As usual, you’ve done the heavy lifting. Your observations bring the proper gravitas to the issue, which I in my intellectual mopery have a tendency to leave out.
It’s the not-so-bright guys like me who do the heavy lifting.. I even had to look up mopery. Unlike a writer like you, I state the obvious, and with an excess of words.
The word was intended in the sense fully described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mopery
And why is there “no chance these people will actually be indicted?”
You know how you deal with a piece of filth like Bush? You tie a noose around his neck, and you drag him to the courtroom by his filthy gizzard.
The same goes for Blair, the Miliband twins (one of whom is now running a rightwing ‘think tank’ in the USA), Hoon, Straw, Brown, Campbell, and “Lord” Mandelson.
Then you string them up.
That is justice.</b.
The souls of a million people illegally massacred in Iraq are calling out for it.
And thousands of billions of people around the world willl never forgive Brits or Americans if they lack the COJONES to do what's needed, and just wink at scum like George W Bush, Ronald Dumbsfeld and the rest of the war criminal filth.