Not Just War Crimes, But Sex Crimes Too
Committed in our name, and with our tax dollars.
As Naomi Wolf noted, "Even as the Bush administration was spinning the notion that the torture of prisoners was the work of 'a few bad apples' low in the military hierarchy, I knew that we were seeing evidence of a systemic policy set at the top."
Me too, and I said so, while some smirked and disbelieved. After all, what do I know? I'm just a citizen who has followed detainee issues for years, professionally and personally. I'm just somebody who was paying attention and who was criticizing the Bush administration when it wasn't popular, when we were all supposed to be marching lockstep behind our Defender, when the critical voices in opposition were few and far between, and those who spoke out were vilified and ridiculed. Now that the truth is finally coming out into the mainstream and others are finally discovering what a few of us figured out long ago, how many of us care what has been done in our name, and how many of us are in denial -- or worse, silently collude? How many of us, given newfound permission to nurture our Inner Thug by the Bush administration's tragic response to 9/11, think these detainees got what they deserved, so it's okay? Or how many of us want desperately to believe that the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity were just a few bad apples? How many of us still don't want to be confused with the facts? This can't really be true, can it?
YES, IT CAN BE, AND IT IS. Please, America, wake up and smell the coffee. War crimes and sex crimes were committed in your name and my name. They were ordered by people in charge, people who should have known better, people who have done our country a grave disservice. People wearing flag lapel pins while trashing everything this country stands for. And we paid for these crimes with our money. And we'll be paying for them for a long, long time with our country's smeared reputation. We can forget about winning hearts and minds for a while. There will be no sustainable peace, no security, no moral authority, no victory worth having, until we finally find a way to wipe the stain of torture from our nation's face.
As Naomi Wolf noted, "Even as the Bush administration was spinning the notion that the torture of prisoners was the work of 'a few bad apples' low in the military hierarchy, I knew that we were seeing evidence of a systemic policy set at the top."
Me too, and I said so, while some smirked and disbelieved. After all, what do I know? I'm just a citizen who has followed detainee issues for years, professionally and personally. I'm just somebody who was paying attention and who was criticizing the Bush administration when it wasn't popular, when we were all supposed to be marching lockstep behind our Defender, when the critical voices in opposition were few and far between, and those who spoke out were vilified and ridiculed. Now that the truth is finally coming out into the mainstream and others are finally discovering what a few of us figured out long ago, how many of us care what has been done in our name, and how many of us are in denial -- or worse, silently collude? How many of us, given newfound permission to nurture our Inner Thug by the Bush administration's tragic response to 9/11, think these detainees got what they deserved, so it's okay? Or how many of us want desperately to believe that the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity were just a few bad apples? How many of us still don't want to be confused with the facts? This can't really be true, can it?
YES, IT CAN BE, AND IT IS. Please, America, wake up and smell the coffee. War crimes and sex crimes were committed in your name and my name. They were ordered by people in charge, people who should have known better, people who have done our country a grave disservice. People wearing flag lapel pins while trashing everything this country stands for. And we paid for these crimes with our money. And we'll be paying for them for a long, long time with our country's smeared reputation. We can forget about winning hearts and minds for a while. There will be no sustainable peace, no security, no moral authority, no victory worth having, until we finally find a way to wipe the stain of torture from our nation's face.
Labels: Abu Ghraib, Bush administration, Guantanamo, Naomi Wolf, sex crimes, torture, war crimes
posted by Christine M. Hanson | 9:26 PM
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