Lourey's "Lost" Speech Asks Big Questions
In these days when there is bitter debate both here and at other progressive news sites about what constitutes “news” and worthy editorial commentary, perhaps we need to be asking the bigger questions. The Internet is filled with impossible amounts of writing, commentary and just plain old rambling, but this “lost” speech by a steely woman from rural Minnesota has a message which all Americans and especially those writers with a bully pulpit might do well to consider.
Following, is Lourey’s speech with minimal editing. I dropped Lourey a note and asked if I could write an op-ed around it, since I have been deeply troubled by the lack of a moral compass in media and in our leadership choices.
Her response?
One word.
“Yes!”
Imagine this Gold Star mother giving a speech under the Minnesota Capitol dome, with the floor in front of the podium littered with empty combat boots.
Lourey’s Text
I have placed Matt’s photo directly in front of me so that as I glance up I am gazing into his eyes. This message today on the 5th Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq – a conspiracy to defraud the United States by President Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald M. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin M. Powell – is laden with pain, but also with determination. Determination to see that these tragedies are not repeated in places such as Iran, promises that the persons who wrote the torture memos and allowed horrendous acts against humanity and human rights in prisons in Bagram, Afghanistan, at Guantanamo, Cuba, at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, and extraordinary rendition are brought to justice.
How We Allowed Fear to Completely Annihilate Our Humanity
I just hate it when we don’t learn from history. After realizing the horrible things we had done by interring the Japanese Americans in detention camps during World War II, and following President Ronald Regan’s apology in 1988, when he signed a law passed by Congress, I thought we would never do things like this again. Especially now since we have the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg Principles to guide us, how is it we let fear completely annihilate our humanity! Have patience, because justice will be done, and as a nation, as a people, we will seek atonement for the sins we have committed.
The Nuremberg Principles provide for accountability for war crimes committed by military and civilian officials. Principle IV of the Nuremberg Principles states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to an order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him. Principal VI of the Nuremberg Principles: The following crimes are punishable as crimes under international law:
Crimes against peace: i. Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; ii. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
War Crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave-labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done, or such persecutions are carried on in execution of, or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Attacking Iran Would Be a War Crime
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