The Senate report on CIA interrogation techniques following 9/11 was released this past week. Our leaders view this national disgrace from diametrically opposite positions.
REPUBLICAN RESPONSES:
- Joe Walsh (conservative radio host and former U.S. Congressman from Illinois): "CIA torture report released. Good. I'm ok torturing terrorists & I want terrorists to know we'll do anything to them."
- Liz Cheney (wanna-be politician and daughter of former VP Dick Cheney): "CIA interrogators deserve our gratitude--Democrat Senate Intel Report targeting them is 'a crock.'"
- Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida): "Those who served us in aftermath of 9/11 deserve our thanks."
- Former President George W. Bush: "These are patriots...These are good people, really good people, and we're lucky as a nation to have them."
- Sean Hannity (Fox News) speaking to Jose Rodriguez, former head of CIA counter-terrorism operations: "It's sad that you have to go through this, Jose...Thank you for all you've done. And we appreciate it."
- Former VP Dick Cheney: "I'd do it again in a minute." He called the report "a bunch of hooey...As far as I'm concerned, they ought to be decorated, not criticized."
- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky): The report "served no purpose other than to confirm what we already knew."
- House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio): America's intelligence community deserves "our thanks, not an ideologically motivated report designed to undermine their work."
DEMOCRAT RESPONSES:
- President Barack Obama: Torture is "contrary to our values...We are better than this."
- Martin Buchanan (former Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate): "The disclosure of the CIA torture program is devastating and surreal...The acts committed were unspeakable and totally indefensible. Truly a black day for America the beautiful."
- Dianne Feinstein (D-California) head of Senate Intelligence Committee: "Every Army private learns the laws of war. These men knew what they were doing and must be held accountable."
- Curt Goering, director of The Center for Victims of Torture: "Societies are not able to move on until they confront the truth. They can't bury the past...There's a process of reckoning with what happened."
- Tony Camerino (who conducted 300 interrogations in Iraq without the use of CIA torture techniques): "As someone much smarter than me once said, 'If you use coercion, you might get the location of the house. But if you get somebody to cooperate, they'll tell you if it's booby trapped.'" Mr. Camerino added that he would like to see criminal prosecutions of the people who employed torture.
The United Nations Geneva Convention Treaty Against Torture or Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was signed by the United States in 1949.
Our word of honor as a country and a people meant something for over 60 years. It took President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to break it and to shame us before the world.
There is no defense for their actions.
Our word of honor as a country and a people meant something for over 60 years. It took President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to break it and to shame us before the world.
There is no defense for their actions.
No comments:
Post a Comment