In this post, Dean Lawrence Velvel asks if we are Joe McCarthy or Joseph Welch. I would ask all of you to go and read his article.
This was my email reply to his latest.
Dean Velevel,
Sir, thank you for this excellent commentary.
Yes, we ARE at that sort of moment. How will we respond to it? I wish, sincerely hope, that we will prosecute ALL the criminals from the Bush dictatorship, including ALL members of BOTH parties in both houses of Congress (i.e. Pelosi etc) who knew the real truth about the torture of the innocent and even those who are guilty of terror acts who we have held in our miserable military prisons.
Notice sir, I say I wish/hope that we, as a country do so. Do I think this will happen? Sadly, no, I do not. I do not think it will happen for the reason that too many who are currently in power, as members of Congress or still in the "new" administration would be put on trial if this were to happen. Those people are fairly wealthy, there are few, if any, "poor folks" who are members of our(??) Congress now days. It takes far too much money to get elected for any "common" folks to be members of Congress.
As I just said, there are far too many current members of Congress who had knowledge of this torture. The knew, and yet, they did nothing about it. They kept silent. This silence reminds ME of that poem about the Nazis. I don't know the name (title) of it, nor do I know it entirely, but the sentiment(?) goes like this; When they came for the communists, I kept quiet, as I was not a communist.........Until, when they came for me, there was nobody left to object. THAT is how I see our(??) members of Congress who KNEW what was happening and to innocent people even,at Gitmo and other military prisons. THEY kept silent, and NOW, they hope all the rest of US will keep silent and not agitate for the prosecution of the criminals who approved of, ordered, and administered the torture. THEY, members of Congress, "hope" that their complicity will be overlooked, let to "slide by" as it were. THEY are having trouble sleeping at night, as THEY are in fear of THEIR own freedom. If THEY are found out, they THEY will have to go before a judge and jury to answer for THEIR silence in regards to what THEY knew.
Any member of Congress who DID know of such crimes and yet kept silent IS as guilty as the other criminals who engaged in any way in the torture of prisoners.
America DOES, indeed deeply NEEDS, to have the truth come out. The country NEEDS to have the criminals brought before a court of law to answer the charges. If found guilty, they MUST be sentenced to long prison terms. My personal choice of punishment would be life, with NO chance ever of parole or pardon. That would be life, making little rocks from big rocks. NO exceptions. No exceptions for reasons of health, age, sex, nor ANY other "excuse" from such punishment if found guilty of these crimes.
Am I being overly harsh? Maybe, yet I do not think so. We are talking about the moral standing of OUR country here. Not some minor detail. The moral health of America demands that the people who were involved in the torture of ANY prisoner in the custody of Americans be prosecuted according to OUR own laws. When we do this, we will show to ourselves that we actually ARE a nation of laws, not a nation of men.
I personally believe that this is absolutely VITAL to the long term health and well being of America. If we allow members of our government and military to escape punishment for torture, when they swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, how can anybody ever trust America again? How can any decent human being not demand that those who engaged in such crimes be allowed to go unpunished?
I am not a religious person. Ask me what my religion is, and I will tell you that I am a heathen. I have NO religion at all. I do not believe in any of them. I do think that I am a, somewhat at least, moral person. I believe that common decency and any moral reasoning demand that those who were involved in or knew of the torture of any prisoners must be put on trial for those crimes. I cannot fathom how any person who has any mild sense of decency or even the mildest of morals could allow for those who were involved in or knew of this torture to go free, with not even as such as a simple trial. No sir, I cannot, will not accept that any moral, decent human being would allow such crimes to go unpunished.
After posting this, I found an article that shows where Spain has laid out charges against six former Bush administration people. They are, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr. Yoo, Mr. Feith, Mr. Bybee, Mr. Addington, and Mr. Haynes.
Excellent news, these guys are finally being charged for their crimes. BUT, why is it that Spain is doing this and NOT America?
Why does president "rainbow" insist that he will not "look backwards" at all? How can we go forward if we do not realize where we have been?
The crimes committed by the last administration MUST be addressed. America needs to step up to the plate here.
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