Tom Ridge Attempts to Untell The Truth

Tom Ridge used to have my begrudging respect.  He seemed to me, despite being a hardened partisan, to be an honest and earnest public servant.  And that opinion was only strengthened when I learned he raised the curtain on the Bush Administration’s politicization of America’s terror alert system.

But now that he has begun to untell the truth that he told,  I will toss him on the trash heap that is littered with disgraced and self-serving conservative republican politicians.  One can only imagine the pressure and arm twisting that went on behind the scenes to get Tom to reverse himself.  A man of strong character would have been unswayed.

I understand what’s really happening here.  There is real pressure for conservatives and republicans to deny that the Bush Administration politicized issues inappropriately.  Especially since Dick Cheney is in the cross hairs for authorizing and advancing the use of torture for political gain, which by the way is against the law.  There never was a solid Saddam / al-Qaeda link to support the invasion of Iraq was there Dick?

Dick is in a world of hurt and he knows it.  It’s just sad to see he’s successfully drug Tom down.

Torture – A Tool Used By Oppressive Regimes

The Bush Administration called it Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, or EITs for short.  I call it torture.

The United States of America ratified with reservations, the Geneva Conventions.   From the ICRC:

“The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols are international treaties that contain the most important rules limiting the barbarity of war. They protect people who do not take part in the fighting (civilians, medics, aid workers) and those who can no longer fight (wounded, sick and shipwrecked troops, prisoners of war).”

If you have not read the Geneva Conventions, you should know that the U.S.A. had absolutely NO reservations regarding the restrictions on torture when it ratified them.  If you are looking for a current background on the U.S.A. and the Geneva Conventions relative to the Bush Administration, you can find it here.

Whatever your position on the morality of torture, the U.S.A. signed an international treaty prohibiting it.  By torturing detainees it has broken international humanitarian law.  The U.S.A was supposed to be a World Leader.  One of my personal definitions of Leadership, is “doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  And torture, America, is never the right thing.  Just ask those that have served professionally in the military.

Torture was illegally authorized for two distinct reasons.  First, to collect intelligence which could be used to prevent future attacks and second, to attempt to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda.

The fact is, the Bush Administration ignored multiple warnings leading up to the attack on the Twin Towers in New York city.  It is therefore arguable that they would not have found themselves hastily approving torture, had they simply acted on the intelligence they had.  Understandably, after allowing the attack on the U.S.A., they felt pressure to act.  But acting like a common thug, torturing detainees, did more harm than good.  And although Dick Cheney continually asserts that torture was necessary, we know that it was in fact NOT.  Torture was NOT necessary.

What is most disturbing, is that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, pushed personnel serving the U.S.A. to torture for political gain.  Having lied to the world about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), they needed to prove they had a real reason, that Saddam’s regime was linked somehow to the attack on New York city.  They were not able to make that link, with or without torture.

Now that both reasons for torture have been thoroughly debunked, some are making arguments such as “What about the next time?“  To those self-serving political hacks, I would say:

“If there ever is a next time for Republicans / Conservatives, set aside your arrogance and listen to your intelligence officials.  And if you instead give them what they need, instead of crippling them, the intelligence you get will be the stronger for it.  Acting like a bully in the world schoolyard, is simply not acceptable.”

It will not be easy for the Obama Administration to repair the damage the previous one did, but I expect that they will continue to demonstrate REAL leadership.