I'd thought of titling this post "Where is the Outrage. . .and the Criminal Convictions?" so that it would better reflect the nature of a "spat." But the spirit of the season got the best of me. As you see, in the mental wrestling match, the alternate title prevailed.
The season of Christmas does not seem an appropriate time
for reports about the abuse of the dignity of the human person revealed in the
Senate CIA investigation report just revealed this week. After all this is the time
when the Christian world pauses to reflect on the birth of a child “whom shepherds guard and angels sing,”
whom magi seek. This is a time for giving gifts expressing our love and
friendship for those close to us. This is not a time for revealing the actions
of a few policy makers that reveals the baser nature of the human spirit motivated
in a time of retaliation by a misconstrued desire to seek the truth, no matter
the means.
And in that spirit, there’s something missing from the media
commentary by the talking-heads on TV and by the curmudgeons in our newspapers
about the report on the CIA’s
detention and interrogation programs by the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence chaired by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California).
This article mentions some of
the missing material redacted from the 528 page “summary version”:
Beyond that is the article in Democracy
Now! about the 2008 Congressional Hearing on the “enhanced interrogation”
methods:
Among other items , is the dialogue of Congresswoman
Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida questioning Vice President Cheney’s chief
of staff David Addington, as well as the House Judiciary Committee chair John
Conyers questioning former Justice Department Attorney John Yoo during a
hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
Can anyone view
the “dodgeball” responses in a Congressional hearing of White House staff so
closely tied to developing the “enhanced interrogations methods” approved by
the Bush Administration without a sense of outrage?
Some of us must
have been outraged seeing the image of the signature of Donald Rumsfeld on a “torture
memo” in December, 2002, with his noted comment: “However, I stand for 8-10
hours a day. Why is standing (by prisoners) limited to 4 hours?”
We all remember how repulsed we were at seeing the images of those
held in Abu-Graib. We remember the furor of response such images caused in those
days. But the obvious sidestepping of moral responsibility for the treatment of
detainees at the hands of our U.S. government, the scape-goating of underlings like
U.S. Army Private Lynndie
England by issuing a sentence of 3-year imprisonment and dishonorable discharge—no
matter how repugnant their actions—has not yielded one conviction of those responsible
for the policy governing the treatment of detainees in the U.S. “war on terrorism.”
In 2007, many may remember the political commentary about the aftermath of the revelation of that White House policy. One commentary I remember was cogently captured in the political cartoon by Pat Oliphant on December 26, 2007.
In this season when
we look forward to the revelation of the Light of the Nations, does not the seeking
of light that will reveal the truth about how we humans treat one another seem
to be a worthwhile pursuit? The good news presents to us shepherds seeking to “see
this thing that has taken place” with simplicity (Lk 2:15) and men of learning
coming from foreign lands to the new-born child “to do him homage” as the fulfillment
of the promise revealed by their science (Mt. 2:2). One lesson we might take away from these
scriptural images—as well as from the more ancient practices upon which so much
of our Christian tradition is built—is that, just as all nature reveals that
the gradual return of increased daylight is a harbinger of a season of new life,
we need to shine the light of the principles of human dignity on the events of
our day and recognize the truth in that light.
