Detainee Abuse Undercuts Moral Authority

[babylonsister]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/detainee_abuse_undercuts_moral.html

Detainee Abuse Undercuts Moral Authority
By Cynthia Tucker

ATLANTA - Does it matter what the rest of the world thinks of the United States? Does it matter that our recent foreign policy has frayed alliances and created enemies? Since we remain the world's only superpower, with the biggest and best military, should we care about our reputation?

Yes, we should. Despite what Vice President Dick Cheney and neocon Norman Podhoretz think, we can't shoot and bomb our way out of this war. While military force is sometimes an appropriate response to terrorists, the U.S. also needs to cultivate friends and admirers. Among the weapons at our disposal, soft power and the light touch are still among the most effective for keeping us safe.

That's one of the reasons the Bush administration's tacit support for torture is such foolish policy. (President Bush claims he doesn't condone "torture." However, he does allow abusive techniques of interrogation that many others define as torture.)

By failing to honor our vaunted ideals, we've lost the respect of much of the world. Over the past six years, a litany of sordid policies and practices has sullied our image: the abuses at Abu-Ghraib; the kidnapping of innocent civilians for torture in other countries, such as Syria; the maintenance of a miserable prison at Guantanamo Bay; and Mr. Bush's refusal to disavow waterboarding and other abhorrent forms of "interrogation."

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Torture also gets you a host of new recruits for the terrorists' cause. For every father or brother tortured by representatives of the United States, there will be sons and relatives who vow savage revenge.

If you don't believe that, take a look at our ally Egypt, whose security forces have a reputation for gruesome torture, including the rape and maiming of family members of suspects. For that reason, Egypt has bred more than its share of jihadists - most notably Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants.

The practice of torture makes us too much like the terrorists we're fighting.

[RethugAssKicker]

1. We never had any moral authority...

It wasn't just the torture... It was the whole damn thing!