Like every other adult living in 21st Century America, I reeled in horror at the 9/11/2001 attacks on our nation. As I went though the motions of that work day my thoughts and feelings were with all the victims, their families and especially those of our nation’s leaders. The following day as I was on my way home from work, I stopped for gas at a local establishment. I could not use the credit card mode on the pump because financial HQ had just been wiped out the day before so I went in and had the clerk use the antiquated method of credit card payment. There was a young high school kid in the place who said he had just joined the Oklahoma National Guard three weeks earlier. He already had his hair cut to reflect his commitment to his oath. As he, the clerk and I discussed what went on the previous day, another local in the place butted in and vehemently exhorted the young man to “Kill anyone that reads the Quran!” That got my attention in a bone chilling way. It was then that I gave some thought to what we as a nation are going to become in the aftermath of such an attack. After I left that establishment I called a local surgeon for whom I occasionally worked at the time. The surgeon was a graduate of Kabul University and had been in the US since 1977. I told him he has my full confidence and that he should lay low while passions were hot.
Like everyone else, I wanted justice for what happened on 9/11. At the time I myself had been retired from the Naval Reserve for a year and a half so all of the indoctrination of giving full humanitarian consideration to prisoners of war was still among the litany of other things which went along with serving with honor. I never thought any organization affiliated with the United States would tolerate much less stoop to torturing prisoners for any reason.
Last week the Senate Intelligence Committee released its $50 million report on the Bush-era CIA interrogation tactics on detainees after 9/11. Senator Angus King of Maine articulated the findings succinctly: “Did we torture people? Yes. Did it work? No.”
From the beginning of the Republic the United States always claimed the moral high ground because we as a nation instilled in our military values that asserted we do not systematically or individually abuse prisoners regardless how bad enemy captors treated our people who had surrendered or had been captured on the field of battle. These values may not always have been followed or implemented, however, abusing prisoners has never been US policy until now. In effect we have sold out our moral high ground for a failed policy. How can we ever look any other member of the Geneva Convention in the eye and be taken seriously?
What’s more is that the abuse done in our name was worse than anyone could have imagined:
7 Most Shocking Things in the CIA Torture Report
I believe I can say this with a reasonable degree of certainty, this is NOT the America that the framers of the Constitution envisioned.