Have we opened a Pandora's Box?

[kentuck]

How was the average American to know that their country was engaged in such widespread abuse and torture of enemy combatants and even those not involved in enemy combat? What have we unleashed? How could people have known that we are the perpetrators of violence and aggression? How could they have known that we were not the purveyors of freedom and democracy but violence and war and death? How could they have known that we were not a country that stood for peace? How could they have known that we were not a nation of human rights? Now that these uncomfortable truths are coming out, how do we handle them? Do we live with it or do we change it?

[klyon]

1. Pandora's Box, I don't know

but we have opened something we were unprepared for. We didn't think it through and now we have a very difficult road to travel. We need someone with a little more on the ball than this administration. I think this situation can be fixed but it will take time, money, humanitarian effort and most of all, we need to ask the world and the people of Iraq to forgive us. Some how we will have to make up for this in the eyes of the world. If we sweep it under the rug or ignore it, things will get much much worse.

KL

[opihimoimoi]

2. It will take time but anything is possible should we strive to address

the challenge.

[DenverDem]

3. Take it one step at a time.

Step One: Throw the traitors out of power and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law with extreme prejudice.

That will show the world that The People will not stand for their country being used as a tool for the subjegation of the world by the power elite.

[bobthedrummer]

11. That's what our laws and Constitution, which is US, calls for.

There are criminals in this administration.
NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

[treepig]

4. how could americans have known?

perhaps by learning just a wee bit of history?

or is that beyond the capability of the "average" american?

[htuttle]

10. "How could Germans have known what was going on inside the camps?"

History indeed!

[seemslikeadream]

13. smell of burning flesh.

Even the villagers outside the Auschwitz death camp reportedly got used to the smell of burning flesh.

[Tactical Progressive]

5. We have one thing going for us in all of this

Everyone in the world except for 50 million or so Fascists in America blames Cheney and Bush for what this country has become in the last four years.

They hold good memories of Clinton and the America that we were. Right now they view America in much the same way we do, as victims of American Fascism, which in turn victimizes them.

I believe, or maybe it's just hope, that if we can rid this country of right-wing ugliness, the America that re-emerges will hold the world together again.

[Spazito]

8. I strongly believe you are right and that is what I hear from friends...

from many places in the world. Because of the obviously fraudulent election of 2000, many people in the world are looking to hold bush and his neocons accountable for what has happened as opposed to the American public as a whole. My sense is that many are holding their collective breath waiting for the US public to correct the wrongs, the first being to throw out bush. If bush is actually elected in 2004, the responsibility for all that will happen will be put squarely on the US public as opposed to any administration.

[Tactical Progressive]

9. The combination of the fraudulent election

and residual sympathy for 9/11 has given the American people a grace period of one election cycle.

There is no excuse now for believing in the ridiculous propaganda of 'compassionate Conservatism' or any of the myriad pre-planned flat-out lies like 'humble foreign policy', 'govern from the middle' and 'uniter not divider'. We've all been given a lesson in exactly what right-wing power in America really means.

I have the very bad feeling that if America validates the corruption of right-wing power in America that the consequences will be tangible and very long term. I can picture a world ready to shun the United States in a hundred million different ways, economically, politically and culturally.

BushCo is our responsibility, even if most Americans had nothing to do with its ascention.

[physioex]

6. Pretty sure it was opened with Shrub took office...

To go from the most respected to the most despised all over the world in terms of our "friends". Fueled the seeds of Islamic fundamentalism. Brought back many seriously injured and mentally scarred soldiers not to mention the dead. Killed thousands of innocent Iraqis not to mention torture. And this doesn't even include the domestic economy, environemnt, education, and health care.

[matcom]

7. we have come full circle

put us in a rape room and we............

put us in a torture chamber and we..........

put us in Hell and we become.....................

guess god isn't on our side afterall

[loudsue]

12. It is IMPERATIVE that Kerry's Atty. Gen. should PROSECUTE

the criminal charges of the bush administration to the full extent of the law.

The standing, and the future economy, of the U.S. in the world will demand that every guilty member of the phony bush administration should take a perp walk.

Like a good sheriff cleaning house, a Kerry administration should make sure every one of the bush administration's lies and financial ties should be made public, and they should be prosecuted.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid Kerry's administration wouldn't do that. If Kucinich had been able to win the primary, MAYBE he would have handled things a little differently than Kerry. But the crimes and misdeeds HAVE TO come out, and be shown to the public and the world, and then we need to make sure our country is purged of the bush type of politician.

If Kerry named Eliot Spitzer as his Atty. General, and gave Spitzer FULL AUTHORITY to go after the Tom DeLays, Roves, bush, cheney's, rumsfelds, rupert murdochs, Diebolds, Enrons, R. Doug Lewis's and frists of the country, we might be able to turn this thing around, and save our Democracy.

We need some serious purging and soul searching in this country.

O8) I only pray it will be done soon! O8)

:kick::kick:

[July]

14. And what if we had never learned of it?

That alone is an important argument for seeing the rest of the evidence. Without the revelations of the photos, we would not even know what was really happening in our name. Now we need to know what the extent of it was. As long as we don't have the full picture, we can only go on the word of proven liars that we are following the law and common decency. Their word is no longer good enough, and we have a right to know how this war is being waged. The government works for us, something they seem to have forgotten.

[CJCRANE]

15. It's up to your leaders

No country is perfect, but it's up to the leaders to set the tone and provide a vision for the nation.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

16. Those "uncomfortable truths" have been hiding in plain sight. Anyone...

...that has done even a modest amount of homework knows that we have been involved in the EXACT SAME ACTIVITIES in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia, Central America, and South America since the late 1940s.

What Pandora's Box are you talking about? Is it the same box that's been open for the last 50-60 years?

[kentuck]

18. But it's only opened when people realize it's open....

And that is the danger we now face. People are starting to understand what has been done in their names.

[burythehatchet]

17. Step 1 - Re-defeat bush*

Step 2 - Take Congress back
Step 3 - Impeach Scalia
Step 4 - Indict all the war criminals at The Hague
Step 5 - Begin the process of re-construction

[opihimoimoi]

19. Take a step at a time, #1 "Defeat Bush" I luv it......