Never Blue, Never Green

Guest Editorial/ Are We a Civilized Nation?

The United States of America—land of the free, etc.—used to be one of the primary forces in the world for promoting peace and democracy. What happened?
People got scared. After Pearl Harbor in 1941, Americans got tough and entered a war for which we were unprepared. We did badly at first in the Pacific against the Japanese and were outgunned by Nazi Germany in Europe. But we stuck it out and made it through, ending the war victoriously, despite our losses, and leaving behind a legacy we’re all proud of to this day.

But after September 11, 2001, what happened? Instead of bucking up and refusing to cave to the terrorists, we did just that. There’s no other way to describe how corrupt politicians violated and ignored the rights of Americans to give us a false sense of security.

Whether it was ignoring the Geneva Convention and refusing to allow prisoners a right to trial by jury, illegally eavesdropping on telephone calls without a warrant (even before September 11, 2001), or creating a color-coded “terror alert chart that has never, ever been in the blue or green, the current administration has made a mockery of our values and played to our fears.

We North Dakotans, in particular, consider ourselves tough, independent, and fair people. How does giving up our rights in a state of panic over the possibility of terrorist attacks honor the lives lost fighting for American safety and freedom?

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

If there were ever an award for cowardly Americans, John Yoo would win the gold. He is the author of the “torture memos,” which he wrote while working at the Justice Department. The memos outlined how the United States could torture prisoners and deny them the right to a trial by jury.

The memos even redefined what torture is, taking out most of the things considered torture by the rest of the world.

Remember when President Bill Clinton was arguing over what sex was and what “is” meant?

That is nothing compared to the shenanigans John Woo, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft pulled in order to redefine torture as “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.” We may be used to chilly April days in North Dakota, but if that bit of newspeak doesn’t make our clocks strike 13, nothing will.

Home of the Brave

Waterboarding, punching, slapping, sleep deprivation—these are torturous behaviors. America is better than that. How can we ever claim victory if we discard our morals and our humanity in order to do so? We may win, but at what cost?

The cowards in charge of our country after September 11, 2001 did not appeal to the better natures of Americans. They did not seek to capitalize on the goodwill the rest of the world offered. Instead, they used the attacks and loss of American lives as an opportunity to invade Iraq (using Afghanistan as a pretense), plans for which were already being made the day George W. Bush took office.

Now we have a military stretched to its breaking point, with soldiers facing extended tours of duty away from their families and states left without the protection of the National Guard, as Louisiana was after Hurricane Katrina. We have a massive deficit compounded by a poor economy and a never-ending war (just ask John McCain).

We lost our national honor when the rest of the world discovered how we treat the prisoners we captured at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Our president told us the United States does not torture. And we don’t. Thanks to upstanding Americans like John Yoo, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell, we don’t torture—we employ enhanced interrogation techniques.

Haven’t we had enough? Enough of the lying, enough of the spying, enough of the misuse and abuse of our proud soldiers? Walter Reed is only the tip of the iceberg—Veterans Administration hospitals have been ignored by the White House for years.

And besides, once the precedent has been established to strip rights away from non-Americans, who’s left but Americans? Americans attacked the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The president can’t tell regular people from fundamentalists in the Middle East (let alone Sunnis from Shia). How could we trust him to tell regular people from fundamentalists in the Midwest?

It’s time for Americans, especially North Dakotans, to stand up to the people who would use and abuse the generosity and fighting spirit of the American people for evil purposes. Giving up our civil liberties and fighting in unending wars against abstract concepts is no way for our country to behave, not when we were once considered a shining example of democracy and justice in the world. Now we have kangaroo courts set up in secret to hear secret evidence to determine the fate of so-called enemy combatants, who are labeled as such in order to avoid public trials.

But there’s always hope. We can still elect responsible politicians, promote responsible legislation, and speak up when we see injustice. We can start right now by standing up to terrorism in the most important way possible: we can stop living scared and start living again as Americans, with honor and dignity.