[Mb-civic] Garrison Keillor: What to Do When the Emperor Has No Clothes

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Published on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 by the Chicago Tribune
 
by Garrison Keillor
 http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0301-34.htm

These are troubling times for all of us who love this country, as surely 
we all do, even the satirists. You may poke fun at your mother, but if 
she is belittled by others it burns your bacon. A blowhard French 
journalist writes a book about America that is full of arrogant stupidity, 
and you want to let the air out of him and mail him home flat. And then 
you read the paper and realize the country is led by a man who isn't 
paying attention, and you hope that somebody will poke him. Or put a 
sign on his desk that says, "Try much harder."

Do we need to impeach him to bring some focus to this man's life? 
The Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker carries an article by Jane Mayer 
about a loyal conservative Republican and U.S. Navy lawyer, Albert 
Mora, and his resistance to the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo 
Bay. From within the Pentagon bureaucracy, he did battle against 
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo, who then was at 
the Justice Department, and shadowy figures taking orders from Vice 
President Dick "Gunner" Cheney, arguing America had ratified the 
Geneva Convention that forbids cruel, inhumane and degrading 
treatment of prisoners, and so it has the force of law. They seemed to 
be arguing that President Bush has the right to order prisoners to be 
tortured.

One such prisoner, Mohamed al-Qahtani, was held naked in isolation 
under bright lights for months, threatened by dogs, subjected to 
unbearable noise volumes and otherwise abused, so that he begged to 
be allowed to kill himself. When the Senate approved the Torture 
Convention in 1994, it defined torture as an act "specifically intended to 
inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering."

Is the law a law or is it a piece of toast?

Wiretap surveillance of Americans without a warrant? Great. Go for it. 
How about turning over American ports to a country more closely tied 
to Sept. 11, 2001, than Saddam Hussein was? Fine by me. No 
problem. And what about the war in Iraq? Hey, you're doing a heck of a 
job. No need to tweak a thing. And your blue button-down shirt--it's 
you.

But torture is something else. Most people agree with this, and in a 
democracy that puts the torturers in a delicate position. They must 
make sure to destroy their e-mails and have subordinates who will take 
the fall. Because it is impossible to keep torture secret. It goes against 
the American grain and it eats at the conscience of even the most 
disciplined, and in the end the truth will come out. It is coming out now.

Our adventure in Iraq, at a cost of billions, has brought that country to 
the verge of civil war while earning us more enemies than ever before. 
And tax money earmarked for security is being dumped into pork-
barrel projects anywhere somebody wants their own SWAT team. 
Detonation of a nuclear bomb within our borders--pick any big city--is a 
real possibility, as much so now as five years ago. Meanwhile, many 
Democrats have conceded the very subject of security and positioned 
themselves as Guardians of Our Forests and Benefactors of Waifs 
and Owls, neglecting the most basic job of government, which is to 
defend this country. The peaceful lagoon that is the White House is 
designed for the comfort of a vulnerable man. Perfectly 
understandable, but not what is needed now. The U.S. Constitution 
provides a simple, ultimate way to hold him to account for war crimes 
and the failure to attend to the country's defense. Impeach him and let 
the Senate hear the evidence.

Garrison Keillor is an author and the radio host of "A Prairie Home 
Companion."

© 2006 Chicago Tribune

###


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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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