Detainee abuse by the CIA came up recently, and Leon Panetta defended his agency by saying that his people did what the American people asked them to do.
Really? I don't recall the American people telling his agency to go forth and torture. Although the Bush-Cheney administration made torture routine policy, they certainly didn't want the dirty little secret to get out.
Curiously, detainee torture has been given tacit approval by the media and public alike, as evidenced by the deafening silence on this subject. Where is the outcry?
The only question asked was, "Did they get any results?" Cheney and others replied by saying, "We got very good intelligence."
But what else could they say? They have to rationalize such morally reprehensible behavior.
Detainees at Abu Ghraib were humiliated unmercifully, and the evidence shows that the torturers seemed to enjoy doing it.
Can you imagine someone torturing detainees by day and then going home at night to his wife and children? When you torture someone, you become a little less human. It is not something you can do without consequence.
The Red Cross found that half of the detainees at Guantanamo were innocent. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a roundup occurred. To torture an innocent person is evil.
If we as a society allow torture, then we cannot call ourselves a Christian nation. We have failed when we find this acceptable behavior. This country needs a moral transfusion.
Eric Morgan
Stafford