I just watched this documentary on HBO. I am newly horrified.
I knew most of the details already, but the new information makes this execration even harder to bear. U.S. Army records show that, of the c. 100,000 people detained by the U.S. military since 2001, only 5% were directly apprehended, and only 8% have been accused of membership in Al Quaeda. The rest were handed over by local militias, usually in return for bounties.
So we always knew there were innocents in the mix, but now I learn that almost everyone in Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib was innocent.
Not that it matters whether they were innocent or not. Torture is unacceptable no matter whom the intended target. What the leaders of our country have done is to throw our principles into the shredder, along with the Declaration of Independence. If we had any dignity, we would hold them accountable to the laws that they have broken.
Of all of the things this depraved cabal have accomplished, this is undoubtedly the worst. It is worse than the lies leading to unnecessary war, the crippling of the U.S. Treasury, the enfeeblement of U.S. diplomacy, the mishandling of the economy, the neglect of the environment, the neglect of the poor, and the politicization of the government. It is worse than all of those things because it betrays a basic tenet of what it means -- what it should mean -- to be American.
I'd rather die than have an iota of torture perpetrated in my name.