For our American government to think that it can conceal human rights violations in order to preserve "national security" is the most un-American idea since the nation's birth in 1776. Human rights trumps "State Secrets" every single time. Bush's outrageous excuse that revealing his torture methods would "allow the enemy to adjust" is quite possibly the most sickening thing ever to publicly pass the lips of an American president. Aside from being laughably illogical, it is totally immoral. The "enhanced interrogation techniques" the President is so fond of are the same ones we trained our special forces and airmen to resist should they be captured by an enemy state with a fondness for torture. The enemy already knows all of our techniques because we learned the techniques from them.
Before 9/11, those "techniques" were considered to be the sinister tools of totalitarian torturers. We were the "Good Guys," and good guys didn't do things like that. Now, the enemy is proclaimed to be so much worse than our old enemies that we can't be the Good Guys anymore. In fact, we are told this new enemy is so bad that we have to become at least as bad as the Bad Guys used to be. As Dick Cheney famously said after 9/11, we have to "work the dark side, spend time in the shadows, use any means at our disposal." So Darth Vader of you, Dick.
Telling the truth does not endanger national security
If you have knowledge of a serious crime, it is your duty to come forward even if something has been "classified," because classifying information to conceal a crime is an even bigger crime. No one is asking you to reveal information that is legitimately classified and would genuinely risk the security of our nation. If there is a genuine piece of intelligence mixed in amongst the criminal activity, precautions can be taken to ensure that part stays secret. Nobody wishes to "help the terrorists." This is no "Fifth Column" type of resistance. This is an uprising of Patriots who will no longer stand by and watch as America's soul is slowly sucked out of it.
Names of undercover agents or confidential informants would be safe from exposure by everyone, except Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby. Tapes of torturous interrogations are safe in everyone's hands, except the C.I.A. Any such tapes should be published far and wide, just as the Abu Ghraib photos were, because human rights abuses should never be concealed for any reason. Faces of agents can be blurred, and the government's claim that the tapes were destroyed because they posed a danger to national security simply because they might anger foreign countries is specious -- they should anger foreign countries. That's like saying China would have been justified in keeping secret the video of the lone protester being run over by a tank in Tiananmen Square because foreign nations would be outraged if they saw it.
Pick a crime . . . any crime
Of course, torture is not the only misdeed. We need you to come forward with information on all of the following issues:
The scope and extent of warrantless wiretapping and other domestic surveillance.
The locations and details about the C.I.A.'s secret prisons.
The political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. A few people have already come forward, but there are others out there who know what happened and are disgusted by it. You may be an office employee, an aide, a prosecutor, or Justice Department staffer -- possibly even a disillusioned appointee. We need to find out whether this man was sent to prison because of his politics.
Israel's bombing of the "suspected nuclear facility" in Syria.
The "Bent Spear" incident in which six nuclear cruise missiles were flown cross-country to Louisiana, en-route to the Middle East, "by mistake." This was prevented by Air Force and Intelligence officers, including Admiral William Fallon, who was just fired for having different opinions than the President about the real location of the frontline in the "war on terror."
The shipping of nuclear fuses for ballistic missiles "by mistake" to Taiwan.
The firing of several U.S. Attorneys for political reasons.
The millions of missing White House e-mails.
Details about corruption and profiteering concerning military contractors in Iraq.
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