Many Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and in secret C.I.A. prisons were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths.
A recent bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee has made what amounts to a strong case for bringing criminal charges against White House officials.
Our highest officials, charged with defending the Constitution and America’s standing in the world, methodically introduced interrogation practices based on tortures devised by Chinese agents during the Korean War.
These top officials ignored warnings from lawyers in every branch of the armed forces that they were breaking the law, subjecting uniformed soldiers to possible criminal charges and authorizing abuses that were considered by experts to be ineffective.
Importantly, our policy of torture swiftly recruited fighters for al-Qaeda. Bluntly, torture and abuse cost American lives. The No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked to Iraq were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.
I can understand that some Americans are eager to put these dark chapters behind them, but it would be irresponsible for the nation and a new administration to ignore what has happened.
Mr. Obama should consider proposals from groups like Human Rights Watch and the Brennan Center for Justice to appoint an independent panel to look into these and other egregious violations of the law. Like the 9/11 commission, it would examine in depth the decisions on prisoner treatment, as well as warrantless wiretapping, that eroded the rule of law and violated Americans' most basic rights. Unless the nation and its leaders know precisely what went wrong in the last seven years, it will be impossible to fix it and make sure those terrible mistakes are not repeated.
No comments:
Post a Comment