[Download] "Torture and the American Character." by The Humanist " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details

Title: Torture and the American Character.
Author : The Humanist
Release Date : January 01, 2004
Genre: Reference,Books,
Pages : * pages
Size : 314 KB

Description

Seymour Hersh recently called Donald Rumsfeld a decent, honorable, truthful, and humorous man. The comments were made in an interview about Hersh's article, "The Gray Zone," which implicates the secretary of defense in a systematic policy of using controversial methods for obtaining intelligence from prisoners--virtually all of them Muslim--detained throughout the world in the wars on terrorism and Iraq. Leaving aside Rumsfeld's humor, the veracity of the first three adjectives will be tested over the following months as the investigations, courts martial, and possible trials unfold, and hopefully the secretary's involvement is clarified. Nevertheless, something can be said now about the attitude of Rumsfeld and others toward torture and its effects on the United States' relations with Islam and, indeed, the rest of the world. As present public discourse on the recent "abuse" scandal unfolds, there are several directions in which the debate might develop. Unfortunately, there is a danger that the issue may settle around individual responsibility. Determining the guilt or innocence of Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez (head of coalition forces in Iraq), Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Meyers, and a host of other high-profile characters--even President Bush himself--creates drama of Shakespearean proportions. Exactly in this milieu of stunning investigation, media circus, and courtroom suspense lies the possibility that a much more trenchant issue will be obscured. In another quarter-century most or all of these major players will be gone from the scene But the United States, one assumes, will go on, the character of which, now as always, will be determining itself.