YOU..AND I..HAVE COMMITTED MURDER

OK,  it was done indirectly, but it was done in our name…by our government.

The Senate report on the CIA last week made this clear. At least one person died at the hands of U-S interrogators using “EIT”s..Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. The President called those techniques  “torture," so did the Senate Committee, and so did Republican Senator John McCain, the only member of the Senate to have been subjected to torture while a POW in ‘Nam.

EIT's were torture. No court in the U-S would permit a police department to use them to extract information  from  suspects, which is what the people we used them on were..none had yet been convicted of any crime.

But, once the Bush administration decided to use torture..water boarding being the best known example..but far from the only one---and this despite the U-S having signed the UN’s Global treaty against torture---what happened?  Did the CIA turn to a brother federal agency with the most experience in interrogations to administer the EITs?  You do not know Washington if you think the CIA would bring in the FBI with its years of experience here. No way; our turf.

So the CIA, again from the Senate report, hired two outside psychiatrists, neither with experience in such interrogations or in Al Qaida, and turned them loose..at the expense of $81 million of your tax dollars. They developed the program, which others, often with little experience applied. No wonder at least one person died…and the value of any information gotten is hotly disputed.

It was an illegal program, poorly conceived, badly run, and it resulted in---among other things—recruiting hundreds to the ranks of Al Qaida, the Taliban, and ISIS. It sullied America’s reputation among our friends..as if dozens of Abu Ghraibs had been unleashed upon the world by the nation where the Rule of Law had been a cherished tradition.

This is partly due  to the “ends justifies the means” argument among top U-S officials, excessive secrecy..usually broken by some fine reporters (several of whom have and are  facing prison for their stories,) the divided, gridlocked government in Washington..and a public which wasn’t concerned enough to protest vigorously  when these excesses were hinted at.

We can not be free at home if we deny our freedoms to others abroad, especially when representatives of our government are doing the denying.  I hope the suspect murdered in my name---and yours—will at least have compensation paid to his family, and an official apology from the U.S. government.

The rest of us need to make sure nothing like this ever happens again..in your name, my name, or America’s.

I'm just sayin'...