William Rivers Pitt’s Assessment of President Obama’s Excuse for America's Torture Program Parallels My Own — Cowardly Platitudes

© 2014 Peter Free

 

09 August 2014

 

 

President Obama admitted that Americans tortured people, but will not do anything about it — because we were afraid and that made it okay

 

From William Rivers Pitt:

 

 

Whatever lingering moral authority remaining in the administration of President Barack Obama fell to dust last Friday . . . .

 

"I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong . . . . we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values."

 

One is immediately struck by the staggering glibness of using the line "We tortured some folks" to encapsulate a . . . comprehensive international program that tore a great many people to pieces . . . to no appreciable gain.

 

The program was used . . . to extract niblets of highly questionable "intelligence" the previous administration used to justify a war of aggression against Iraq that won them elections and made their friends rich.

 

"I think it's important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the twin towers fell . . . .”

 

By citing the fear that came after the attacks of 9/11 . . . the president betrayed his oath, just as those who practiced torture betrayed theirs.

 

The Constitution was violated, the Geneva Convention was violated, and still everyone walked, and on Friday, the president said that was fine, because we were "afraid."

 

By lining up with and defending the torturers, he has added his name to the roll call of shame that continues to dishonor this nation.

 

I no longer have any interest in what he has to say.

 

© 2014 William Rivers Pitt, The Dumpster Fire of Obama's Moral Authority, TruthOut (07 August 2014) (extracts)

 

 

The President’s motives for exhibiting such spineless dishonor?

 

Acting in a conveniently expedient fashion is typical of this president.

 

Here, he is afraid of going after the mostly Republican people who initiated the torture program.  Perennially unmotivated Attorney General Holder would actually have to enforce the law against powerful interests that repeatedly dismember America’s core ideas to their own profit.  President Obama and General Holder almost always prefer to fight with people who lack the means to fight back.

 

Second, in regard to sweeping torture under the carpet, the President is afraid that his own massive escalation of President George W. Bush’s drone murder program makes him a war criminal as well — should anyone in the future wish to press the issue.

 

Thus, for our Commander in Chief:

 

(a) it is morally and professionally easier to ignore torture on the basis of the “we wuz afraid” excuse,

 

than

 

(b) it is to demonstrate that America really is ethically superior to other nations that engage in exactly the same reprehensible methods of political control.

 

 

Evidently, President Obama (reportedly a Constitutional scholar) thinks that fear is a reasonable excuse for evading the requirements of law and morality

 

It would be difficult to come up with a behaviorally more odious proposition.

 

 

The moral? — Violating one’s own ethical principles due to fear is called cowardice

 

A coward’s guidance is no guidance at all.