Blog | A former soldier said he tortured prisoners in Iraq and can’t be forgiven. Do you agree?
Update:
A former soldier says he should never be forgiven for the torture he committed. Do you agree?
Here’s a portion of what he wrote:
I’ve published articles in newspapers detailing our abusive treatment of Iraqi detainees. I’ve done interviews on TV and radio. I’ve spoken to groups from Amnesty International, and I’ve confessed everything to a lawyer from the Department of Justice and two agents from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command. I’ve said everything there is to say. It’s not hard to pretend the best thing to do is put it all behind me.
I stood before the class that day tempted to let apathy soften the painful truths of history. I no longer had to assume the role of the former interrogator at Abu Ghraib. I was a professor at Lehigh University. I could grade papers and say smart things in class. My son could ride the bus to school and talk to his friends about what his father does for a living. I was someone to be proud of.
But I’m not. I was an interrogator at Abu Ghraib. I tortured.
Earlier:
The justifications for the torture we committed after the 9/11 attacks seem to fall along a simple line:
We are good, therefore the bad we do can’t be that bad.
That’s hogwash.
We did not commit so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
We tortured some people we believe were really bad, as well as some people there’s good reason to believe were not bad actors.
In the name of national security, we became the bad actors. Period.
Let’s not sugarcoat. Let’s not talk around the issue. Let’s not declare our righteousness unless we want to lower ourseleves to the likes of ISIS, which also, by the way, believes its rapes and beheadings and torture techniques are done with the blessing of God.
Here’s a word from Sen. John McCain, a man I frequently disagree with, but also a man who knows about torture:
Many Republicans are furious at Tuesday’s release of the so-called “torture report,” but Sen. John McCain, who himself spent years confined as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, defended the exhaustive look at the CIA’s behavior post-Sept. 11, saying Americans must “know what was done in their name.”
“The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless,” Mr. McCain, Arizona Republican, said on the Senate floor, just minuted after intelligence committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein announced the report.
The fact is that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, almost all of us were scared or anxious and were willing to have just about anything done in our name to feel safer.
While that’s true, it is still no excuse. It just means that most of us are complicit in this, not just the people who committed the acts.
That’s why we should learn from our mistakes today so we can make a better choice next time, if such dark days rise once again.
This story was originally published December 9, 2014 at 2:17 PM with the headline "Blog | A former soldier said he tortured prisoners in Iraq and can’t be forgiven. Do you agree?."