Torture Is a Bad Thing

The papers report that Iraq is not a problem for George Bush, but it is for me. Not only am I disappointed that WMD have never been found and that there is no clear link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida, but I am very upset that the administration has not reacted strongly to distance itself from the torture carried out at Abu Ghraib and other locations, inside and outside of Iraq. Today, the New York Times reported that the CIA has hidden many more prisoners than at first believed.

As far as I am concerned, this administration went wrong when it first decided that the Geneva Convention did not apply to prisoners in Guantanamo, and then went on to fail to apply the Geneva Convention to other prisoners outside of Guantanamo. I think the whole group that decided not to apply the Geneva Convention should go, presumably including President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld, as well as White House and Justice Department staffers. Many high ranking military officers have dirty hands, starting with General Miller, who used to be incharge of Guantanamo, and now is in charge of Abu Ghraib. The recent military claims that many more low ranking soldiers were involved is just a smoke screen to protect high ranking officers. How can America use torture as a political tool? It's awful. The people who do it and approve it are awful.

I've believed since the start of the war that the CIA was using torture, but I thought it was probably sending prisoners to places like Morocco, so that it could claim that Americans were not torturing prisoners. Now, it turns out that nobody cares. It's fine for Americans to torture people. I don't think so. Where is the outrage? Why does American have to follow Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's example? They were the people we wanted to get rid of, and now we are saying that they were using the right tactics!