Our national disgrace

Yesterday the Obama administration released several Bush-era memos from the Office of Legal Counsel that detail interrogation techniques authorized for CIA use. These actions include throwing prisoners against the wall, placing them in small containers with bugs for hours at a time, sleep deprivation for more than a week, and, most infamously, waterboarding. They are, unequivocally, acts of torture and they were sanctioned by our government. Thinking about this makes me feel physically ill.

On a personal level, what is perhaps most disgusting to me is that very little of what was announced in these memos is new information. Almost all of it was already part of the public discourse about the U.S. government's use of torture under Bush and Cheney. But I have never before felt so bothered, so incensed about it. Andrew Sullivan has harped on this issue for quite some time. Though I certainly have always agreed with him that torture is evil, for some reason reading his tirades and even seeing some of the gut-wrenching photos that he has posted lacked the gravity of yesterday's news.

Government officials and most of the mainstream media have long side-stepped the full brutality of "enhanced interrogation." Having official acknowledgment forces this uncomfortable issue to the forefront of our national consciousness. This nation that I love so much and am very proud to call home has done some exceptionally terrible things. Just because I'm a Democrat and abhor, out of basic principle, much of what Bush and Cheney did to our country does not free me from this collective stain on American honor.

I was planning to write something today ridiculing the recent "tea parties" as baseless and hypocritical, but I don't have the stomach for it right now. The only comforting thing I've read all morning is Obama's statement regarding the documents' release. It is characteristically calming and to the point. Even if you disagree with his policies, I cannot see how anyone could doubt that he has good intentions and approaches each situation with the same measured pragmatism. This seems even more obvious when held in direct contrast with the despicable, pre-meditated inhumanity of the previous administration that has now been brought to light.