10:20 am
What’s Missing at DNC: Torture, Guantanamo. . .and Cheney
So far we’ve seen dozens of speakers at the Democratic National Convention. They’ve attacked Bush and McCain. They’ve touted solutions to energy and climate change. They’ve talked about Supreme Court justices and choice. They’ve talked getting out of Iraq, and winning the war against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. A few have even mentioned, in passing, that the United States needs to rebuild its relationship with allies, once agan leading rather than dictating to the rest of the world.
But there is one set of issues that we haven’t heard about yet — not once in two days of banal blathering.
Call it the destruction of American values. It includes a number of things.
Like torture.
Guantanamo.
Abu Ghraib.
Indefinite detention of American citizens.
Denial of habeas corpus.
Waterboarding.
Rendition.
Black sites.
It’s as if the books by Jane Meyer, Jack Goldsmith, Philippe Sands, and so many others have gone right down the memory hole.
Where’s the anger at this desecration of everything America supposedly stands for? Where’s the condemnation of the Bush Administration’s trashing of the Constitution? Where are the demands that these things stop, and stop immediately?
And where are the attacks on the man who most needs to answer for his role in not just allowing, but promoting these abominations? Where is the condemnation and vilification of Dick Cheney?
There isn’t a politician more unpopular in America today. More importantly, there isn’t anyone more responsible for the trashing of America’s reputation in the world.
Yet after two days, we’ve heard nothing about him or his comprehensive attack on human rights and civil liberties. Nothing about his single-minded shredding of the Bill of Rights, Geneva Conventions, and Convention against Torture. Nothing about waterboarding, sleep deprivation, the use of dogs, or forced confinement. Nothing about the fact that our allies now believe that this Administration has committed war crimes.
We’ve heard plenty about windmills and wages, but nothing about Cheney’s conscious destruction of American values.
In less than a week, Dick Cheney will take the Darth Vader world tour to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. In his primetime speech, he will call Democrats weak, inept, and unwilling to face down “evil.”
If the Democrats fail to call him out on his own evil this week, he’ll be right.
Are Democrats afraid? Are they unwilling to confront Bush, Cheney, and McCain on foreign policy? Are they afraid of John McCain because he keeps reminding people on every possible occasion that he was a POW?
There’s a simple way to handle this. All the Democrats have to say is that the Bush Administration believes that it doesn’t torture. Then talk about all the things that they now do that the North Vietnamese did to John McCain. And then point out that according to George Bush and Dick Cheney, John McCain wasn’t tortured. And then say how dare they implement polices once used against our brave servicemen and women. And also make sure that people know that John McCain actually sanctions torture, as long as it’s committed by the CIA.
It’s the truth. It reminds Americans of what we stand for without dragging them through the muck and horror of the past seven years. It also has the advantage of putting both McCain and the Bushies on the defensive.
We’ve heard that Obama-Biden will be different, that they will no longer concede the high ground on foreign policy issues to the Republicans. But if they never mention torture, Guantanamo, or any of the other terrors that Cheney, Addington, Yoo and company have inflicted on America and the world, then they are just as fearful and timorous as past candidates.
And next week, the Republicans will have free reign to make them look like apologists and traitors.
And in November, Barack Obama will lose.
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