I remember when we were the good guys, the nation that stood above others in the way we dealt with prisoners of war. No longer. Now we might as well include ourselves in the "Axis of Evil," given the fact that we not only approved torture at the highest levels, we denied it at the highest levels. The fact that we, the most powerful nation that has ever existed on the face of the planet, have resorted to such despicable behavior literally sickens me. What's more, our leaders (and perhaps our next president [please, god, no], for only McCain among the major Republican candidates has come out foursquare against torture) have failed to recognize one of the lessons of history: that torture doesn't work. Torturing our enemies may bring some useful information, but it will also bring us false information that sounds like the truth. More important, our acts of torture will ultimately only harden the enemy, and assist him in his recruiting plans. They don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us for our hypocrisy. They hate us because we venture off into the rest of the world pitching freedom and justice (and don't get me wrong, I love democracy and think it ought to be embraced everywhere in the world), yet when it suits our purposes, we're all too ready to justify and deny sadistic behavior or the suspension of human rights. I'd be pissed, too.
In this piece in yesterday's Washington Post, you can read what the former commandant of the Marines Corps and the former commander-in-chief of CentCom have to say on the issue.
PHOTO: Two billboards on a major highway in Tehran, Iran. The people of the Islamic world are well aware of what we have done, how our president has reacted to what we have done -- and I can't imagine they are happy about it.
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