Reply #8: The headline is honest

[TayTay]

And unspeakably sad. The United States of America tortured people. Torture was approved by the highest ranks of our civilian and military government. The neoconservative belief that America was special because of "our Constitution, our principles, our values and our ideals" is shattered. We tortured people and it was policy. There were a lot of people in the upper echelons of our government, including the Congress, who knew about this and basically did nothing to prevent it.

Of course this is going to be thrown back in our faces by our enemies. Of course it's going to become a recruitment point for terrorist organizations.

The release of those photographs is nothing to celebrate. (Like with the batch that came out in 2004 from Abu Ghraib, I will make every effort to not see any of them. It is enough to know it happened, I can't bear to see these pictures.) This is a shameful, disgraceful episode in the history of this country. There is nothing to celebrate here.

I think Sen. Kerry's statement is positively joyful and positive compared to my feelings on this issue. The only good thing I can derive from this whole episode is that I am, for the first time in my life, glad that certain relatives, who served in this nation's military, never lived to see this day. Shame on us for this and shame on President Obama for waffling about getting a commission or something together to have a reckoning on this.

This is a test of our democracy. We shall see if we pass this test or if we retreat to a place of hollow inaction and platitudes. There will be consequences for what we did. We gave aid and comfort to our enemies and they will use this against us. Yet, we still have to face what we have done. There is no joy, no political glee in this, just horror.