WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today issued the following statement on a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation which found that the Central Intelligence Agency misled the White House and Congress about the brutal interrogation of terrorism suspects:
“A great nation must be prepared to acknowledge its errors. This report details an ugly chapter in American history during which our leaders and the intelligence community dishonored our nation’s proud traditions. Of course we must aggressively pursue international terrorists who would do us harm, but we must do so in a way that is consistent with the basic respect for human rights which makes us proud to be Americans.
“The United States must not engage in torture. If we do, in an increasingly brutal world, we lose our moral standing to condemn other nations or groups that engage in uncivilized behavior.”
Contact: Michael Briggs (202) 224-5141
Taking Responsibility
“I’m sorry for my role in this, whatever it was that I did that contributed or failed to prevent it.”
Should we be thinking something along those lines?
We Americans like to take “responsibility” when our country does amazingly good or cool things. “We” went to the moon, “We” built the Panama Canal, and “We” created jazz in America.
Did “We” also torture people? There certainly were quite a number of people chomping at the bit to get the bad guys, no matter what, in the Cheney years. They hated us for our freedoms, remember?
No one stopped this from happening – mock executions, holding and revving drills next to people’s heads, and so on. Some even made out quite well:
“Contractor psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen played a critical role in establishing the torture program in 2002. A company they formed to contract their services to the CIA was worth more than $180m, and by the time of the contract’s 2009 cancellation, they had received $81m in payouts.” says the Guardian.
Does one need to be paid to be culpable?
Boy, how do you word that job
Boy, how do you word that job in a resume? “From 2002 through 2009 I designed extreme methods of torture that were possibly (or not) instrumental in acquiring important (or not) information that may have led (or not) to terrorist acts against the United States.For this I received a salary compensurate with my talents and experience”