Laws do not stand in judgment of morality. Quite the opposite is true. And laws either promote commonly accepted moral virtues, (i.e. benevolence, compassion, charity, forbearance, selflessness, love, etc.), or they abet the cleaving of those virtues from society.
Our nation’s turn to torture, thanks to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, David Addington, (et al), remains unanswered and unargued. The importance cannot be overemphasized. America tortured prisoners, and in a significant number of cases, innocent men. Our leaders, will full knowledge, instigated, promoted and supported barbarism.
And then lied about it. Over and over.
And then un-lied about it. Over and over.
And now Dick Cheney, at his most brazen, puffs his chest and insists everybody else was wrong, and he’d do everything all over again if he had the opportunity. Interestingly, he never uses the “T” word to describe the thing he created.
When men from other countries just a few decades distant discharged the same orders, they were tried, convicted and sentenced as war criminals. Some were hanged. For torture. The men listed above, along with their facilitating goons, continue to walk the planet, free from any prosecutorial concern.
Let me paint a slightly different picture.
A young, highly armed, white, American male steps into a crowded theater, or college campus, or elementary school, and mercilessly shoots any and all human beings that he can find.
We consider that exactly and precisely what it is; a horrific nightmare of immorality and wickedness. And if the shooter survives, he will either be condemned to death, or will spend the rest of his life in prison.
But when our country’s leaders formulate orders based upon willful lies and disinformation, which result in the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent victims, along with the illegal and otherwise unconstitutional snatching of people around the world, and then subject those people—many who are innocent of any crime—to unimaginable agony and debasement at the hands of torturers?
And the whole time those leaders lie through their teeth about what they’ve done and continue to do?
What is our response?
We let them walk, and a large percentage of our population couldn’t be bothered.
But the fact remains, the highest elected officials within our government instigated and condoned torture.
And no one seems to care.
