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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2009
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 OPINION 
15

We're All to Blame for Torture

Tactics are no surprise; let's not dump our guilt on CIA

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(Newser) – Suddenly, Democrats in Congress are calling for the prosecution of CIA agents for torture. But that torture was never a secret, and when it was politically prudent, Democrats had no problem backing it—and neither did many Americans, writes Naomi Wolf in the Guardian. We’ve all got “blood on our hands,” and prosecuting CIA operatives would be scapegoating to ease our own guilt.

“When the political winds were with the last administration,” Wolf writes, “just about every congressional Democrat fell right into line to accept it, if not cheer it on.” And “how many Americans spoke up when it was chic to thrill to the sadistic soundbite of ‘take the gloves off’?” Instead of going after the CIA agents, we must “lay the guilt where it belongs”: legally, on leaders who ordered the torture, and "emotionally and morally," on ourselves.

Mike Morice of World Can't Wait group is seen after a live waterboarding demonstration outside the Spanish Consulate in Manhattan to urge prosecution in Spain of the alleged involvement of Bush administration officials in the torture of terror suspects, Thursday, April 23, 2009 in New York.
Mike Morice of World Can't Wait group is seen after a live waterboarding demonstration outside the Spanish Consulate in Manhattan to urge prosecution in Spain of the alleged involvement of Bush administration...   (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Leaders like Condoleezza Rice should be in legal trouble over torture, not CIA operatives, Wolf writes.
Leaders like Condoleezza Rice should be in legal trouble over torture, not CIA operatives, Wolf writes.   (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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15 comments
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Timinator2K
Apr 28, 09 12:39 PM CDT
Keep your liberal guilt to yourselves, dopes and I'll keep being alive thanks to appropriately aggressive interrogation techniques...which, DO NOT KILL ANYBODY. Reply
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IN RESPONSE:
NutsInNY
Apr 28, 09 12:51 PM CDT
"...any tactics the KGB feels are appropriate," Timinator continued, "should be employed if they help keep the Soviet Union safe from the pro-democracy and pro-human rights forces of darkness in the world."
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-1
IN RESPONSE:
AnnieChrist
Apr 28, 09 12:58 PM CDT
And you know this is true because dick cheney says so!
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-1
IN RESPONSE:
PaleRider
Apr 29, 09 2:46 AM CDT
No AC, we know this because "The Bama's" own man said that it was true.
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+1
NutsInNY
Apr 28, 09 12:42 PM CDT
Yeah right, and Jesus 'died for our sins' instead of at the hands of specific authority figures at the time... Reply
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-1

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