Dick Cheney has condemned President Obama as unwilling to defend the nation from terrorists. He is furious that the Justice Department is proceeding on investigating “enhanced interrogation techniques”, better known as torture, by CIA operatives.
Dick Cheney and George W. Bush and their colleagues try to justify torture as if it is part of our history, which it is not.
Torture is against international law, but more important even than that is that no President of the United States ever endorsed torture, even in crisis times–including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Neither did President Eisenhower, when he was leader of the Allied invasion of Europe in World War II.
As John McCain has stated, torture is not a good method to gain any information, as one will say whatever you want to avoid or end the torture. It also promotes, as justifiable, the utilization of torture by the enemy, and while it is true that the other side might do that, do we really want to get down into the muck with them and lower the American standard of morality and idealism that has made us a shining example over the centuries to many people around the world?
History and principle require us to reject torture as a tool of national policy, and for a full accounting of the responsibility of our past leaders for what has happened in our names!
I agree 100%
I would agree also. However, it saddens me that Obama has yet to close Guantanamo and, sadly, torture is still being conducted there and/or in other countries – by which to satisfy the governments legal council. I’d like to see “change I can believe in” – and see- rather than open promises. Mr. Obama, it is time to act and undo the Bush era abuses of civil liberties.
I cannot disagree with your call for a quick undoing of Bush’s abuse of civil liberties. However, I also wonder how President Obama has time to sleep with all of the demands on him to do everything immediately! 🙂 LOL