Our country changed after the attacks on the World Trade Center. We can all agree on that. Americans were united against a common enemy. The president even issued this edict: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” The lines were drawn.
In the wake of Sept. 11, U.S. troops attacked Afghanistan and then we invaded Iraq. I think that we can all agree that this also happened. As for the legitimacy of the war in Iraq, we’ll probably start to break ranks.
I do not support the war in Iraq-never have; probably never will. Since I do not agree whole-heartedly with U.S. policy, I sometimes wonder if I am one of George Bush’s so-called terrorists. The thought of me being considered a terrorist by the Bush administration is not scary in and of itself-have you seen the track record on hunting down and killing known terrorists?
The thing that scares me about being labeled a terrorist is that the president has decided that American intelligence agencies should be exempt from the basic interrogation laws governing cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment on detainees in U.S. custody outside the United States. Is it supposed to be comforting that the CIA would have to export me to Canada to shove splinters into my eyelids and call it justifiable? Things are getting really confusing. After all, the United States is the only country in the world to claim legal justification for the mistreatment of prisoners during interrogation, according to Human Rights Watch. Whatever happened to the coalition of the willing? Lady Liberty stands alone.
I am not naive enough to believe that terrorists will hand over trade secrets if asked politely. I also know that given enough ill treatment, a person will say anything that you want to hear.
Where should we draw the line? It’s not like the president received repeated warnings (using information compiled through conventional methods) of a possible Al Quaeda strike to be carried out through suicide bombers crashing hijacked airplanes into prominent American landmarks leading up to that fateful September day, right? Wrong. The CIA had more than enough information warning of these attacks using means that fall within bounds of basic human rights (as outlined by the Geneva conventions). The problem wasn’t lack of information then; it was administration officials’ inaction on the matter.
However, being no expert in these matters, I felt compelled to turn to people who are well versed in U.S. policy. I found my ally in a man named John McCain. McCain (R-Arizona) spent five and a half years as a POW in Vietnam being subjected to the very treatment that the Bush administration is trying to legitimize. In October, Sens. McCain and Lindsey Graham sponsored a bill that would prohibit the military and CIA from using “cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment” in the case of any detainee, anywhere in the world. The bill passed in the Senate: 90-9.
There is a part of me that agrees that extreme measures must sometimes be employed on extremists, but how will we distinguish the extremists that have legitimate plans for attacking and killing Americans from the extremists that have only legitimate reasons for hating the United States at their disposal? Through torture?
It has already been determined that such techniques have a penchant for extracting lies from people, and now we would also have the problem of determining who is a terrorist and who is not. That brings us back to Bush’s litmus test: if you do not agree with the United States, then you are against us and that makes you a terrorist.
Well, call me a terrorist and electrocute my eyeballs, but I don’t agree with you Mr. Bush, and neither does Sen.McCain. And, by the way, I have the feeling that we will find plenty of allies among the majority of Americans that already disapprove of the job you’re doing, sir.