Hold on, folks. Weird as it may sound, news of what was done in torture chambers in the name of Americans--but denied at the very top of government—presents an opportunity.
As minimal as it may seem, to my knowledge, we will have been the first nation to confess so openly to such barbarous actions.
Had the allies failed to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese in WWII, does anyone even suggest that atrocities of the Holocaust and other prison ugliness would have been unearthed or their story told for tons of years? After all, for some time, even some of the most prominent American industrialists, diplomats and others chose to look the other way but offered support as Hitler not only made his way across Europe, committed to both power and what became known as the Holocaust, his published goal to destroy the Jews…all of them.
Comes now the suspected but insufficiently published story of our torture chambers. With the release of the CIA torture report we prove the nation is strong enough and willing enough to hear the truth. People of good will from all sides of the political spectrum supported the exposure of this blot on our history and reputation.
While this terrible story was pushed to the front pages of media around the world, and we will take our deserved hits as a result, few of those same screaming foreign media or extremist folks right here in the United States have pressed for the kinds of inhumane realities that have characterized the conduct of the Syrian government, the tragedies of Liberia, Libya and Nigeria, among others.
Such revelations will do little to nothing to minimize the current revelations of our own conduct, but America has been willing to own up to its own actions.
The fact of those revelations should not and cannot argue for the slightest forgiveness or understanding for those in command who directed and accepted the actions revealed in the reports.
And it is vital that we place the responsibility for this disgraceful conduct right where it has belonged all along: in the names of President George W. Bush and his collaborating Vice President Dick Cheney, who all along maintained that the torture was necessary, legal and correct.
As to those abroad ready to toss both media and physical assaults on the United States for these revelations, let them all look to themselves.
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Joseph J. Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, Wash.
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