(Blog Post)
After all, defending torture — and the torturers — is now a long accepted practice in American journalism, one that brings you much acclaim and access to power, bylines, headlines, prestigious awards, and lucrative contracts.
Plus there are all the reader benefits to consider as well!
Full Story »
To:
Separate email addresses with commas.
25 recipients max.
Note:
This piece strikes at the heart of two issues: the illegal, immoral, and disgraceful American use of torture, and overwhelming efforts by politicians and pundits to pretend simultaneously that it didn't happen, it wasn't so bad, and they did it for our own good. Any attempt by alleged "news media" to dodge the facts or dismiss the seriousness of the issue is unconscionable.
…Tom Friedman — ever consistent and persistent in his excuse making for the powerful — hailed, in a recent column, Barack (“Split the baby”) Obama’s “torturous compromise” to expose, but not prosecute, those responsible for violating our Constitution and international law by torturing in our names. This despite the fact that, as Friedman accurately noted, “more than 100 detainees died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, with up to 27 of those declared homicides by the military. They were allegedly kicked to death, shot, suffocated or drowned. Look, our people killed detainees, and only a handful of those deaths have resulted in any punishment of U.S. officials.”
Where’s the reporting by Friedman et al of the massive public cries for justice? Why do only the excuse-makers and enablers get media mention?
Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group, agreed with Friedman’s contention that there should be no torture prosecutions because we had all “acquiesced” in the Bush-Cheney Torture Agenda; we were all “the President’s accomplices,” and thus “pursuing criminal charges would be too hard legally and politically and too easy morally.’ According to Weisberg’s twisted morality and logic, "Prosecuting Bush and his men won’t absolve the rest of us for what we let them do.”
“We” didn’t “LET them” do this—most of us have done all within our ability to stop and expose the torture, and demand accountability for those responsible. It is the MEDIA that enables these crimes by ‘reporting’ only what they choose to acknowledge…and “all the news that is PROFITABLE to print.” Since the Nixon/Watergate debacle, expedient politicians and ‘news media’ have claimed that “we simply don’t have the stomach to go through that ordeal again.” They are simply wrong. We don’t have the luxury to avoid it.
Unfortunately, seeing and hearing leading and allegedly liberal media figures such as Weisberg and Friedman blame the rest of us for the Bush-Cheney moral failings — and then claim that prosecuting senior officials who break the law will “rip our country apart” — has now become as common as seeing and hearing the likes of Newsweek Senior Editor and NBC News correspondent Jonathan Alter, or The Atlantic’s National Correspondent Mark Bowden, say things like “In this autumn of anger, even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to torture,” which can “be morally sound,” as Bowden wrote. “It may be clear that coercion is sometimes the right choice.”
Torture is NEVER the ’right choice." And history will not forgive us if we fail to face our own war crimes. No excuse will exonerate us, period.
O'Connor's biting outrage is exactly what we need to hear, and to share with everyone we know. What is at stake here is the entire moral and ethical identity of America and Americans, for generations to come. Any pretense that this is not the crux of the matter is willful ignorance. Any attempt by media or politicians to cover up, deny, dodge, and discount admitted crimes undermines everything America stands for. If there is such a thing as Superman's brandmarked search for "Truth, Justice, and the American Way," discovering the truth about U.S. torture and holding the guilty accountable is a mandatory national necessity. If we fail to confront and bring the full force of law and justice to our own war crimes, we forfeit all rights to hold any other nation accountable for what they do to our citizens, or to anyone else, for that matter. How can we incarcerate 1 of every 100 of our own citizens for 'crimes' like possession of minor drugs or stolen goods when we blithely overlook our own war crimes? There are few moral absolutes in today's Cosmos, but the ‘torture issue’ is one of them.