Udalls full statement on the Senate floor calling out the CIA and Obama administration for not reckoning with the past, destroying documents and videos of torture, and continuing to lie to the people; he calls for the resignation of CIA director Brennan. This is a long video, but as an original source is required viewing. Torture is wrong, period. As Udall says, there can be no excuses for a lack of accountability -- it is not enough to hope that this nation does not commit torture again, and such statements recall only the old saying justice delayed... Furthermore we are dealing with violations of the constitution, executive orders, and federal criminal statutes. Without a reckoning upon past actions we will allow future administrations (alongside the present one) to sweep moral responsibility aside. President Obama, along with all others who claim that we must not focus on the past are distorting what should be regarded as the most basic matter of justice. If Americans believe torture is wrong, and feel shame at the truth of what our nation has done in the wake of 9/11, then they should push aggressively for accountability. Otherwise this nation affirms torture as a necessary result of fear -- this evasion of moral responsibility which ends finally in the deepest mode of political cynicism and cruelty. Do not allow the cynical manipulators of fear and language to destroy the ethical substance of this simple truth: Torture is wrong. If we shy from accountability out of too much sympathy for those torturers (whatever their motives), we destroy the humanity inherent in those tortured. Those who believe barbarism abroad does not become barbarism at home ignore the most recent lesson in Ferguson, when it was Palestinian activists who trained American citizens to make gas masks -- to protect Americans from American-made tear gas canisters the Palestinians are all too familiar with.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 05:31:05 +0000
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