In re Torture

The controversy remains over how far to go with release of classified material and impeachment, or prosecutions of those involved with torture in the previous administration. On the one hand, there is as much of a need to know from taxpayers and citizens in this country as there has ever been with any other issue, maybe even more so in this case than Watergate or Iran Contra. But on the other hand, the President has an ambitious agenda and how much of that could be derailed by hearings a la Clinton Lewinsky? When those were held Congress barely got anything else accomplished, the 103rd Congress aside from the hearings and investigation was basically a wash. In my opinion, the country is still weary of what happened that year, remembers it well and doesn't want it replayed.

But this is different. Why? It has to do with how Americans' tax dollars were spent, not private conduct of an elected official involving an unpaid intern. And it goes beyond how tax dollars are spent, it goes to the very heart of principles on which this country was founded, specifically those outlined in the US Constitution's Eighth Amendment on cruel and unusual punishments. Our founders, wanting to separate from England and be distinct from it in so many ways, didn't forget its history of torture and coercing admissions of guilt from people it wanted them from. OK, one could argue, the torture that took place in the Tudor era involved citizens of England primarily. True, but what is the US if it condones methods of torture for foreign born peoples it outlaws itself? And what if those methods violate international human rights agreements?

This isn't what our founders had in mind during the Continental Congress and in creating our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. But our tax dollars were spent on it. And that's why it does need to be investigated, as fully as necessary.