Sen. Byrd: Our Obligation to Investigate

[ProSense]

Sen. Robert Byrd

Our Obligation to Investigate

In President Obama's inaugural address, he declared that "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

The President's statement referenced false and disingenuous choices of the Bush Administration. As the facts continue to come to light about exactly what happened at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, and other U.S.-run secret prisons around the world, it is increasingly impossible to ignore that the U.S. government violated the basic human rights of prisoners. Not only did these insidious tactics sacrifice our national integrity, but they may also have compromised our security as well.

The recently leaked report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as the four released memorandums from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), confirm our worst fears. These documents point to brutal, inhumane acts which were repeatedly carried out by U.S. military personnel, and which were authorized and condoned at the highest levels of the Bush Administration. These acts appear to directly violate both the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. Spain and the United Kingdom have already initiated investigations of Bush Administration officials who approved these acts. The United States needs to investigate as well. To continue to ignore the mounting evidence of clear wrongdoing is a national humiliation.

Additionally, U.S. military officials have come forward with accounts of the damage these policies have done to our military's ability to prosecute detainees. According to those officials, because torture was used as an interrogatory method, prosecution may not be brought against individuals who may, in fact, be terrorists.

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[stillcool]

1. I sent him a thank you email...

and thank you for posting this!

http://www.congress.org/bio/id/622&lvl=C&chamber=S

[Egnever]

2. This man continues to amaze me

he may have been wrong in his younger years but he has been oh so right for a long time now.

[karynnj]

3. Here he is and on the IWR he was, but in between he has been

both good and bad.