An intelligent and thoughtful response to the Durbin/Gitmo/torture/Nazi imbroglio. Worth the read.
from Body and Soul:
I'm not a constituent, but I should have written to you sooner. You've been doing holy work for quite awhile, trying to make sure that "American values" don't include torture, and excuses for torture. That made you a hero in my view long before you made your extraordinary speech last week. One section of that speech, one analogy, got the most attention, and however brave and true that section was, I'm afraid the controversy that was ginned up around it drew attention away from other virtues of the speech. I've been plowing through memos, military reports, papers from human rights groups, news reports, and bloggers' rants for years and I've seen few instances of people laying out the case against this administration's detention policies that were as clear, as reasonable, as complete, or as honest. Your words were also hopeful and inspiring:
Many people who read history remember, as World War II began with the attack on Pearl Harbor, a country in fear after being attacked decided one way to protect America was to gather together Japanese Americans and literally imprison them, put them in internment camps for fear they would be traitors and turn on the United States. We did that. Thousands of lives were changed. Thousands of businesses destroyed. Thousands of people, good American citizens, who happened to be of Japanese ancestry, were treated like common criminals.
It took almost 40 years for us to acknowledge that we were wrong, to admit that these people should never have been imprisoned. It was a shameful period in American history and one that very few, if any, try to defend today.
I believe the torture techniques that have been used at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and other places fall into that same category. I am confident, sadly confident, as I stand here, that decades from now people will look back and say: What were they thinking? America, this great, kind leader of a nation, treated people who were detained and imprisoned, interrogated people in the crudest way?
It is not easy to face up to the truth about what America is doing today and at the same time look toward a future in which Americans will be deeply ashamed of this part of our history. I try, and I don't always succeed. The temptation is either to cling to a vision of a perfect country and never acknowledge the evil, or to sneer that this horror is what America has become, and give up. We need a Virgil to guide us through hell without despair.
I meant to write and thank you for that service. I'm sorry I didn't, because courage deserves acknowledgment.
There's an understandable assumption on the left now that your courage failed you, that you caved in to enormous pressure. If that's true, your second speech was not only cowardly, it was astonishingly foolish. Take a look at the response of some of the people who demanded an apology now that they have it. They have nothing but contempt for your "teary-eyed" and "blubbering" apology. You've given the kind of people who celebrate everything you've fought against one more victory. You've made it far easier for them to argue that there is no torture problem, the only problem is Democrats and their overheated rhetoric.
We must end this nightmare. You know that as well as I do. I hope you also know that you've set us back. We can't stand behind your words if you don't.
Reading over your statement, I'm not so sure you were responding to pressure from torture's apologists. I have a feeling you heard from some people who were genuinely hurt by your analogy (as opposed to the vast majority who feigned shock to draw attention away from the points you made) and were speaking mainly out of concern for their feelings. As someone concerned about what the glorification of militarism does to this country, who often risks having her attacks on military sentimentality come across as attacks on soldiers, I understand that desire not to have your words, even your twisted and distorted words, used to hurt innocent people.
But if that was the case, you should have addressed any "apology" directly to those people, not to the Senate, and pointed out that if what you said came across as an insult directed at them, that was not your intention. And then you should have come back all the harder on the main points of your original speech: We love this country, and we will not stand by while it takes up, bit by bit, step by step, the tools of its enemies. I hate to be so blunt, but this is how the game is played.
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