Unfortunately, such an investigation may be a waste. George Washington University law professor writes, "[Holder] is going to structure the investigation to protect high-ranking officials from investigation for war crimes. While Holder admits that waterboarding is torture, he is reportedly going to allow only the investigation into whether some interrogations went beyond the torture guidelines set by the Justice Department -- which allowed for waterboarding."
Americans with liberal and conservative leanings have foolishly discounted the importance of accountability. A broad swath of the population would rather keep politicians focused on "health care reform" instead of investigating the crimes of the Bush Administration. This swath would suggest that what's done is done and it's in the past and what we have to do now is make sure it doesn't happen again.
But as news breaks that 45,000 more troops may be sent to Afghanistan by a top U.S., as we read news that torture and abuse at Gitmo continues under Obama, and as we see reports of Cheney-supported CIA death squads and Blackwater founder's Christian supremacist campaign in Iraq, it does not appear that this "cosmic war," this climate which breeds brutality, cruelty, and unprincipled decision making will dissolve anytime soon.
Despite the many speeches which Obama makes to give overture to human rights advocates and those concerned with the negative impacts of American empire, there is no apparent change in direction. To continue the "war on terror", to ensure that know roadblocks are put up to constrain how this war is fought, laws are circumvented, rewritten, or ignored.
Americans should pause and consider what future is in store for a country whose people allow the rule of law to be tossed aside because it believes their faith in a battle against an enemy trumps all human rights and laws which are germane to the survival of people in the world.
And, this which was most recently published in the New York Times should give us even more pause. This is an excerpt from an article describing the development of the CIA's interrogation program by two architects, who were contracted to develop the program:
""At the C.I.A. in December 2001, Dr. Mitchell's theories were attracting high-level attention. Agency officials asked him to review a Qaeda manual, seized in England, that coached terrorist operatives to resist interrogations. He contacted Dr. Jessen, and the two men wrote the first proposal to turn the enemy's brutal techniques -- slaps, stress positions, sleep deprivation, wall-slamming and waterboarding -- into an American interrogation program.
By the start of 2002, Dr. Mitchell was consulting with the C.I.A.'s Counterterrorist Center, whose director, Cofer Black, and chief operating officer, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., were impressed by his combination of visceral toughness and psychological jargon. One person who heard some discussions said Dr. Mitchell gave the C.I.A. officials what they wanted to hear. In this person's words, Dr. Mitchell suggested that interrogations required "a comparable level of fear and brutality to flying planes into buildings.--
Take a moment to consider the psychology and mentality behind men who were carrying out interrogations with "a comparable level of fear and brutality to flying planes into buildings." Are such interrogations really necessary to keep America safe or are they the symptom of "cosmic war"?
Is this not what one should expect from a U.S. military and CIA rife with visions of Christian supremacy or more appropriately, visions of wiping out Muslims?
As General William G. Boykin, the man tasked with hunting down nin Laden put it, "Our enemy is a spiritual enemy"His name is Satan"Satan wants to destroy us as a nation and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army."
With military leaders and even political leaders thinking in these terms, with people finding validity in declarations by Left Behind series writer Tim LaHaye that September 11th was the "focal point of end-time events," how can we discount the reality that those carrying out this "war on terror" endanger us all by taking actions that expand this into a larger religious war each and every day?
And by fighting it, by seeking revenge with actions with fear and brutality en par with flying planes into building, America ensures that death, destruction, and annihilation of people continues; it ensures that al Qaeda will have new recruits and will continue to exist.
The only proper path for America and those in American society is one which involves a laying down of arms, a dismissal of the urge for revenge and vengeance in the Middle East, and a discarding of the desire to complete whatever job Americans imagine the troops are completing or trying to finish in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or any other part of the Middle East.
Our survival may depend on not fighting this war. It may depend on leaders like President Obama not just calling out religious extremism from our enemies but on calling out religious extremism from elements in our nation which wage this war against Islamic extremism.
As Sam Harris in The End of Faith puts it,
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