War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."George W. Bush, upon the invasion of Iraq--March 17, 2003.
I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy.GWB again, June 26, 2003
Also, did you know Condoleeza Rice personally approved waterboarding?
But then, there's the classic question: is water-boarding really torture?
Apparently, we thought so after WWII. We tried and executed Japanese torturers for water-boarding.
(Repeat the word to yourself: executed.)
It's not legitimate to compare it to other, more graphically painful forms of torture, and say that because Saddam did worse, water-boarding just doesn't count. First, that which seems awful to us cannot be objectively judged until we experience. A former Japanese PoW calls water-boarding "the worst experience of [his] life"--more so than beatings, more so than having his arms broken. Water-boarding is a very useful torture technique: it doesn't look that awful if you're just watching a video, and it doesn't leave any marks, but it is hell to those who experience it. A technique that causes pain, but does not rile people to intervene.
But wait! Torture helps. Torture works. It's not pleasant, but sometimes the ends justify the means.
Well, they would, except that the CIA (liberal America-haters!) tell us that, you know, actually, it kinda doesn't work. At all.
What does this come down to? If America is to be consistent in its positions, then it must prosecute--and prosecute to the highest level.
I don't want anyone executed. This is the administration that pushed Saddam Hussein's execution for war crimes, but I am against the death penalty. Yet there seems to me something terribly momentous in even thinking of it. We have never prosecuted a president of the United States for a crime--certainly not for a war crime so serious as this. I can not imagine it--I cannot imagine the media circus, I cannot imagine the madness and punditry surrounding the trial--I cannot imagine the American people. I don't know how it would affect this nation.
We have long considered ourselves a city on the hill. We try not to think of ourselves like other nations--where dictatorships, where torture, where awful underhanded things happen. We are different, we think.
We need to think differently. I don't know how it will change us, but I am certain it will be for the better. Having never prosecuted a President for crimes, the American people have given the President total license. The law still does not apply. To imprison members of the Bush administration will change the nature and powers of the presidency forever.
It will also change the American people. We have survived on the illusion that we have no responsibility for that which our government does--that we have no power to effect change. That we are . . . absolved. To prosecute those responsible for torture will make us a new people, one that must acknowledge its agency and think seriously about ourselves as actors on a global stage.
Like it or not, the U.S. is still a world leader. Our hypocrisy makes the world a darker place; our integrity opens it to a better future.
Prosecute. Prosecute to the highest level. Follow the trail where it leads, and prosecute every man and woman who brought the U.S. to this point. Drag it into the light and then shut it away--and then never forget that, ultimately, we all allowed it to happen.
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