[wordup] Al Gore: Bush Promised Us Humility; Brought Us Humiliation

[Adam Shand]

It's very strange reading about the US, and forwarding interesting 
articles, while living outside of the US.  I read this article and it 
resonates with me, but I have no idea how the America is reacting to 
this information.  I don't know if it's been disproved, mocked, 
accepted.  Are people outraged, embarrassed, in denial or looking for 
people to blame?

I assume people react like me, but then I remember walking mute and 
stunned around work in the months following 911 and hearing (some of) 
my upper-middle class work mates talking about nuking the fucking arabs 
and turning the desert into a radioactive wasteland.

What do you think?  What went wrong?  Did it go wrong?  Have your 
opinions changed?  If so, how?

Adam.

From: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0527-01.htm

Bush Promised Us Humility; Brought Us Humiliation
Published on Thursday, May 27, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

By Al Gore
Prepared Remarks
New York University
May 26, 2004

George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he 
has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.

He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." 
Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a 
durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.

Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would 
not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of 
our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson 
described as "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." He did not 
honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in 
designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen 
dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their 
flag-draped coffins.

How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French 
newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans 
Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to 
the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in 
Abu Ghraib.

To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration 
sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had 
guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful 
strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of 
"preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent 
right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to 
its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted 
a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever 
it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in 
circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, 
in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future 
threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the 
President.

More disturbing still was their frequent use of the word "dominance" to 
describe their strategic goal, because an American policy of dominance 
is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the 
helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. 
Dominance is as dominance does.

Dominance is not really a strategic policy or political philosophy at 
all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate 
their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And 
as always happens - sooner or later - to those who shake hands with the 
devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the 
bargain is their soul.

One of the clearest indications of the impending loss of intimacy with 
one's soul is the failure to recognize the existence of a soul in those 
over whom power is exercised, especially if the helpless come to be 
treated as animals, and degraded. We also know - and not just from De 
Sade and Freud - the psychological proximity between sexual depravity 
and other people's pain. It has been especially shocking and awful to 
see these paired evils perpetrated so crudely and cruelly in the name 
of America.

Those pictures of torture and sexual abuse came to us embedded in a 
wave of news about escalating casualties and growing chaos enveloping 
our entire policy in Iraq. But in order understand the failure of our 
overall policy, it is important to focus specifically on what happened 
in the Abu Ghraib prison, and ask whether or not those actions were 
representative of who we are as Americans? Obviously the quick answer 
is no, but unfortunately it's more complicated than that.

There is good and evil in every person. And what makes the United 
States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule 
of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our 
natural distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and 
democracy are what have lead us as a people to consistently choose good 
over evil in our collective aspirations more than the people any other 
nation.

Our founders were insightful students of human nature. They feared the 
abuse of power because they understood that every human being has not 
only "better angels" in his nature, but also an innate vulnerability to 
temptation - especially the temptation to abuse power over others.

Our founders understood full well that a system of checks and balances 
is needed in our constitution because every human being lives with an 
internal system of checks and balances that cannot be relied upon to 
produce virtue if they are allowed to attain an unhealthy degree of 
power over their fellow citizens.

Listen then to the balance of internal impulses described by specialist 
Charles Graner when confronted by one of his colleagues, Specialist 
Joseph M. Darby, who later became a courageous whistleblower. When 
Darby asked him to explain his actions documented in the photos, Graner 
replied: "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the Corrections 
Officer says, 'I love to make a grown man piss on himself."

What happened at the prison, it is now clear, was not the result of 
random acts by "a few bad apples," it was the natural consequence of 
the Bush Administration policy that has dismantled those wise 
constraints and has made war on America's checks and balances.

The abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib flowed directly from the abuse 
of the truth that characterized the Administration's march to war and 
the abuse of the trust that had been placed in President Bush by the 
American people in the aftermath of September 11th.

There was then, there is now and there would have been regardless of 
what Bush did, a threat of terrorism that we would have to deal with. 
But instead of making it better, he has made it infinitely worse. We 
are less safe because of his policies. He has created more anger and 
righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our 
country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation -- because of his 
attitude of contempt for any person, institution or nation who 
disagrees with him.

He has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every U.S. town and 
city to a greater danger of attack by terrorists because of his 
arrogance, willfulness, and bungling at stirring up hornet's nests that 
pose no threat whatsoever to us. And by then insulting the religion and 
culture and tradition of people in other countries. And by pursuing 
policies that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, 
women and children, all of it done in our name. President Bush said in 
his speech Monday night that the war in Iraq is "the central front in 
the war on terror." It's not the central front in the war on terror, 
but it has unfortunately become the central recruiting office for 
terrorists. [Dick Cheney said, "This war may last the rest of our 
lives.] The unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter 
incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and 
dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United 
States. Just yesterday, the International Institute of Strategic 
Studies reported that the Iraq conflict " has arguable focused the 
energies and resources of Al Qaeda and its followers while diluting 
those of the global counterterrorism coalition." The ISS said that in 
the wake of the war in Iraq Al Qaeda now has more than 18,000 potential 
terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling 
its ranks.

The war plan was incompetent in its rejection of the advice from 
military professionals and the analysis of the intelligence was 
incompetent in its conclusion that our soldiers would be welcomed with 
garlands of flowers and cheering crowds. Thus we would not need to 
respect the so-called Powell doctrine of overwhelming force.

There was also in Rumsfeld's planning a failure to provide security for 
nuclear materials, and to prevent widespread lawlessness and looting.

Luckily, there was a high level of competence on the part of our 
soldiers even though they were denied the tools and the numbers they 
needed for their mission. What a disgrace that their families have to 
hold bake sales to buy discarded Kevlar vests to stuff into the 
floorboards of the Humvees! Bake sales for body armor.

And the worst still lies ahead. General Joseph Hoar, the former head of 
the Marine Corps, said "I believe we are absolutely on the brink of 
failure. We are looking into the abyss."

When a senior, respected military leader like Joe Hoar uses the word 
"abyss", then the rest of us damn well better listen. Here is what he 
means: more American soldiers dying, Iraq slipping into worse chaos and 
violence, no end in sight, with our influence and moral authority 
seriously damaged.

Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, who headed Central Command 
before becoming President Bush's personal emissary to the Middle East, 
said recently that our nation's current course is "headed over Niagara 
Falls."

The Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, Army Major General Charles 
H. Swannack, Jr., asked by the Washington Post whether he believes the 
United States is losing the war in Iraq, replied, "I think 
strategically, we are." Army Colonel Paul Hughes, who directed 
strategic planning for the US occupation authority in Baghdad, compared 
what he sees in Iraq to the Vietnam War, in which he lost his brother: 
"I promised myself when I came on active duty that I would do 
everything in my power to prevent that … from happening again. " Noting 
that Vietnam featured a pattern of winning battles while losing the 
war, Hughes added "unless we ensure that we have coherence in our 
policy, we will lose strategically."

The White House spokesman, Dan Bartlett was asked on live television 
about these scathing condemnations by Generals involved in the highest 
levels of Pentagon planning and he replied, "Well they're retired, and 
we take our advice from active duty officers."

But amazingly, even active duty military officers are speaking out 
against President Bush. For example, the Washington Post quoted an 
unnamed senior General at the Pentagon as saying, " the current OSD 
(Office of the Secretary of Defense) refused to listen or adhere to 
military advice." Rarely if ever in American history have uniformed 
commanders felt compelled to challenge their commander in chief in 
public.

The Post also quoted an unnamed general as saying, "Like a lot of 
senior Army guys I'm quite angry" with Rumsfeld and the rest of the 
Bush Administration. He listed two reasons. "I think they are going to 
break the Army," he said, adding that what really incites him is "I 
don't think they care."

In his upcoming book, Zinni blames the current catastrophe on the Bush 
team's incompetence early on. "In the lead-up to the Iraq war, and its 
later conduct," he writes, "I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, 
negligence and irresponsibility, at worst, lying, incompetence and 
corruption."

Zinni's book will join a growing library of volumes by former advisors 
to Bush -- including his principal advisor on terrorism, Richard 
Clarke; his principal economic policy advisor, former Treasury 
Secretary Paul O'Neill, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who was honored 
by Bush's father for his service in Iraq, and his former Domestic 
Adviser on faith-based organizations, John Dilulio, who said, "There is 
no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this 
one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is 
everything, and I mean everything, run by the political arm. It's the 
reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told Congress in February 
that the occupation could require "several hundred thousand troops." 
But because Rumsfeld and Bush did not want to hear disagreement with 
their view that Iraq could be invaded at a much lower cost, Shinseki 
was hushed and then forced out.

And as a direct result of this incompetent plan and inadequate troop 
strength, young soldiers were put in an untenable position. For 
example, young reservists assigned to the Iraqi prisons were called up 
without training or adequate supervision, and were instructed by their 
superiors to "break down" prisoners in order to prepare them for 
interrogation.

To make matters worse, they were placed in a confusing situation where 
the chain of command was criss-crossed between intelligence gathering 
and prison administration, and further confused by an unprecedented 
mixing of military and civilian contractor authority.

The soldiers who are accused of committing these atrocities are, of 
course, responsible for their own actions and if found guilty, must be 
severely and appropriately punished. But they are not the ones 
primarily responsible for the disgrace that has been brought upon the 
United States of America.

Private Lynndie England did not make the decision that the United 
States would not observe the Geneva Convention. Specialist Charles 
Graner was not the one who approved a policy of establishing an 
American Gulag of dark rooms with naked prisoners to be "stressed" and 
even - we must use the word - tortured - to force them to say things 
that legal procedures might not induce them to say.

These policies were designed and insisted upon by the Bush White House. 
Indeed, the President's own legal counsel advised him specifically on 
the subject. His secretary of defense and his assistants pushed these 
cruel departures from historic American standards over the objections 
of the uniformed military, just as the Judge Advocates General within 
the Defense Department were so upset and opposed that they took the 
unprecedented step of seeking help from a private lawyer in this city 
who specializes in human rights and said to him, "There is a calculated 
effort to create an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" where the 
mistreatment of prisoners is concerned."

Indeed, the secrecy of the program indicates an understanding that the 
regular military culture and mores would not support these activities 
and neither would the American public or the world community. Another 
implicit acknowledgement of violations of accepted standards of 
behavior is the process of farming out prisoners to countries less 
averse to torture and giving assignments to private contractors

President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State 
of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 "suspected 
terrorists" had been arrested in many countries and then he added, "and 
many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: they are 
no longer a problem to the United States and our allies."

George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he 
did. As many as 37 prisoners may have been murdered while in captivity, 
though the numbers are difficult to rely upon because in many cases 
involving violent death, there were no autopsies.

How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve 
unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On 
the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves 
apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. 
The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their 
relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.

How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney 
Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the 
world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us 
to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the 
United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture 
prison.

David Kay concluded his search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq 
with the famous verdict: "we were all wrong." And for many Americans, 
Kay's statement seemed to symbolize the awful collision between Reality 
and all of the false and fading impressions President Bush had fostered 
in building support for his policy of going to war.

Now the White House has informed the American people that they were 
also "all wrong" about their decision to place their faith in Ahmed 
Chalabi, even though they have paid him 340,000 dollars per month. 33 
million dollars and placed him adjacent to Laura Bush at the State of 
the Union address. Chalabi had been convicted of fraud and embezzling 
70 million dollars in public funds from a Jordanian bank, and escaped 
prison by fleeing the country. But in spite of that record, he had 
become one of key advisors to the Bush Administration on planning and 
promoting the War against Iraq.

And they repeatedly cited him as an authority, perhaps even a future 
president of Iraq. Incredibly, they even ferried him and his private 
army into Baghdad in advance of anyone else, and allowed him to seize 
control over Saddam's secret papers.

Now they are telling the American people that he is a spy for Iran who 
has been duping the President of the United States for all these years.

One of the Generals in charge of this war policy went on a speaking 
tour in his spare time to declare before evangelical groups that the US 
is in a holy war as "Christian Nation battling Satan." This same 
General Boykin was the person who ordered the officer who was in charge 
of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay to extend his methods to Iraq 
detainees, prisoners. … The testimony from the prisoners is that they 
were forced to curse their religion Bush used the word "crusade" early 
on in the war against Iraq, and then commentators pointed out that it 
was singularly inappropriate because of the history and sensitivity of 
the Muslim world and then a few weeks later he used it again.

"We are now being viewed as the modern Crusaders, as the modern 
colonial power in this part of the world," Zinni said.

What a terrible irony that our country, which was founded by refugees 
seeking religious freedom - coming to America to escape domineering 
leaders who tried to get them to renounce their religion - would now be 
responsible for this kind of abuse.

Ameen Saeed al-Sheikh told the Washington Post that he was tortured and 
ordered to denounce Islam and after his leg was broken one of his 
torturers started hitting it while ordering him to curse Islam and 
then, " they ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive." Others reported 
that they were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol.

In my religious tradition, I have been taught that "ye shall know them 
by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 
Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree 
bringeth forth evil fruit… Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know 
them."

The President convinced a majority of the country that Saddam Hussein 
was responsible for attacking us on September 11th. But in truth he had 
nothing whatsoever to do with it. The President convinced the country 
with a mixture of forged documents and blatantly false assertions that 
Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda, and that he was "indistinguishable" 
from Osama bin Laden.

He asked the nation , in his State of the Union address, to "imagine" 
how terrified we should be that Saddam was about to give nuclear 
weapons to terrorists and stated repeatedly that Iraq posed a grave and 
gathering threat to our nation. He planted the seeds of war, and 
harvested a whirlwind. And now, the "corrupt tree" of a war waged on 
false premises has brought us the "evil fruit" of Americans torturing 
and humiliating prisoners.

In my opinion, John Kerry is dealing with this unfolding tragedy in an 
impressive and extremely responsible way. Our nation's best interest 
lies in having a new president who can turn a new page, sweep clean 
with a new broom, and take office on January 20th of next year with the 
ability to make a fresh assessment of exactly what our nation's 
strategic position is as of the time the reigns of power are finally 
wrested from the group of incompetents that created this catastrophe.

Kerry should not tie his own hands by offering overly specific, 
detailed proposals concerning a situation that is rapidly changing and 
unfortunately, rapidly deteriorating, but should rather preserve his, 
and our country's, options, to retrieve our national honor as soon as 
this long national nightmare is over.

Eisenhower did not propose a five-point plan for changing America's 
approach to the Korean war when he was running for president in 1952.

When a business enterprise finds itself in deep trouble that is linked 
to the failed policies of the current CEO the board of directors and 
stockholders usually say to the failed CEO, "Thank you very much, but 
we're going to replace you now with a new CEO -- one less vested in a 
stubborn insistence on staying the course, even if that course is, in 
the words of General Zinni, "Headed over Niagara Falls."

One of the strengths of democracy is the ability of the people to 
regularly demand changes in leadership and to fire a failing leader and 
hire a new one with the promise of hopeful change. That is the real 
solution to America's quagmire in Iraq. But, I am keenly aware that we 
have seven months and twenty five days remaining in this president's 
current term of office and that represents a time of dangerous 
vulnerability for our country because of the demonstrated incompetence 
and recklessness of the current administration.

It is therefore essential that even as we focus on the fateful choice, 
the voters must make this November that we simultaneously search for 
ways to sharply reduce the extraordinary danger that we face with the 
current leadership team in place. It is for that reason that I am 
calling today for Republicans as well as Democrats to join me in asking 
for the immediate resignations of those immediately below George Bush 
and Dick Cheney who are most responsible for creating the catastrophe 
that we are facing in Iraq.

We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal 
competence because the current team is making things worse with each 
passing day. They are endangering the lives of our soldiers, and 
sharply increasing the danger faced by American citizens everywhere in 
the world, including here at home. They are enraging hundreds of 
millions of people and embittering an entire generation of 
anti-Americans whose rage is already near the boiling point.

We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country 
with more blunders by this team. Donald Rumsfeld, as the chief 
architect of the war plan, should resign today. His deputies Paul 
Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and his intelligence chief Stephen Cambone 
should also resign. The nation is especially at risk every single day 
that Rumsfeld remains as Secretary of Defense.

Condoleezza Rice, who has badly mishandled the coordination of national 
security policy, should also resign immediately.

George Tenet should also resign. I want to offer a special word about 
George Tenet, because he is a personal friend and I know him to be a 
good and decent man. It is especially painful to call for his 
resignation, but I have regretfully concluded that it is extremely 
important that our country have new leadership at the CIA immediately.

As a nation, our greatest export has always been hope: hope that 
through the rule of law people can be free to pursue their dreams, that 
democracy can supplant repression and that justice, not power, will be 
the guiding force in society. Our moral authority in the world derived 
from the hope anchored in the rule of law. With this blatant failure of 
the rule of law from the very agents of our government, we face a great 
challenge in restoring our moral authority in the world and 
demonstrating our commitment to bringing a better life to our global 
neighbors.

During Ronald Reagan's Presidency, Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan was 
accused of corruption, but eventually, after a lot of publicity, the 
indictment was thrown out by the Judge. Donovan asked the question, 
"Where do I go to get my reputation back?" President Bush has now 
placed the United States of America in the same situation. Where do we 
go to get our good name back?

The answer is, we go where we always go when a dramatic change is 
needed. We go to the ballot box, and we make it clear to the rest of 
the world that what's been happening in America for the last four 
years, and what America has been doing in Iraq for the last two years, 
really is not who we are. We, as a people, at least the overwhelming 
majority of us, do not endorse the decision to dishonor the Geneva 
Convention and the Bill of Rights….

Make no mistake, the damage done at Abu Ghraib is not only to America's 
reputation and America's strategic interests, but also to America's 
spirit. It is also crucial for our nation to recognize - and to 
recognize quickly - that the damage our nation has suffered in the 
world is far, far more serious than President Bush's belated and tepid 
response would lead people to believe. Remember how shocked each of us, 
individually, was when we first saw those hideous images. The natural 
tendency was to first recoil from the images, and then to assume that 
they represented a strange and rare aberration that resulted from a few 
twisted minds or, as the Pentagon assured us, "a few bad apples."

But as today's shocking news reaffirms yet again, this was not rare. It 
was not an aberration. Today's New York Times reports that an Army 
survey of prisoner deaths and mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanistan"show 
a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than 
previously known.'

Nor did these abuses spring from a few twisted minds at the lowest 
ranks of our military enlisted personnel. No, it came from twisted 
values and atrocious policies at the highest levels of our government. 
This was done in our name, by our leaders.

These horrors were the predictable consequence of policy choices that 
flowed directly from this administration's contempt for the rule of 
law. And the dominance they have been seeking is truly not simply 
unworthy of America - it is also an illusory goal in its own right.

Our world is unconquerable because the human spirit is unconquerable, 
and any national strategy based on pursuing the goal of domination is 
doomed to fail because it generates its own opposition, and in the 
process, creates enemies for the would-be dominator.

A policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates 
enemies for the United States and creates recruits for Al Qaeda, it 
also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to 
defeating the efforts of terrorists who wish harm and intimidate 
Americans.

Unilateralism, as we have painfully seen in Iraq, is its own reward. 
Going it alone may satisfy a political instinct but it is dangerous to 
our military, even without their Commander in Chief taunting terrorists 
to "bring it on."

Our troops are stretched thin and exhausted not only because Secretary 
Rumsfeld contemptuously dismissed the advice of military leaders on the 
size of the needed force - but also because President Bush's contempt 
for traditional allies and international opinion left us without a real 
coalition to share the military and financial burden of the war and the 
occupation. Our future is dependent upon increasing cooperation and 
interdependence in a world tied ever more closely together by 
technologies of communications and travel. The emergence of a truly 
global civilization has been accompanied by the recognition of truly 
global challenges that require global responses that, as often as not, 
can only be led by the United States - and only if the United States 
restores and maintains its moral authority to lead.

Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our 
greatest source of strength, and it is precisely our moral authority 
that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations and mean 
compromises of conscience wagered with history by this willful 
president.

Listen to the way Israel's highest court dealt with a similar question 
when, in 1999, it was asked to balance due process rights against dire 
threats to the security of its people:

"This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to 
it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. 
Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its 
back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and 
recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important 
component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day they 
(add to) its strength."

The last and best description of America's meaning in the world is 
still the definitive formulation of Lincoln's annual message to 
Congress on December 1, 1862:

"The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise - with 
the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. 
We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. 
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history…the fiery trial through which 
we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest 
generation…We shall nobly save, or meanly lose the last best hope of 
earth…The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if 
followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."

It is now clear that their obscene abuses of the truth and their 
unforgivable abuse of the trust placed in them after 9/11 by the 
American people led directly to the abuses of the prisoners in Abu 
Ghraib prison and, we are now learning, in many other similar 
facilities constructed as part of Bush's Gulag, in which, according to 
the Red Cross, 70 to 90 percent of the victims are totally innocent of 
any wrongdoing.

The same dark spirit of domination has led them to - for the first time 
in American history - imprison American citizens with no charges, no 
right to see a lawyer, no right to notify their family, no right to 
know of what they are accused, and no right to gain access to any court 
to present an appeal of any sort. The Bush Administration has even 
acquired the power to compel librarians to tell them what any American 
is reading, and to compel them to keep silent about the request - or 
else the librarians themselves can also be imprisoned.

They have launched an unprecedented assault on civil liberties, on the 
right of the courts to review their actions, on the right of the 
Congress to have information to how they are spending the public's 
money and the right of the news media to have information about the 
policies they are pursuing.

The same pattern characterizes virtually all of their policies. They 
resent any constraint as an insult to their will to dominate and 
exercise power. Their appetite for power is astonishing. It has led 
them to introduce a new level of viciousness in partisan politics. It 
is that viciousness that led them to attack as unpatriotic, Senator Max 
Cleland, who lost three limbs in combat during the Vietnam War.

The president episodically poses as a healer and "uniter". If he 
president really has any desire to play that role, then I call upon him 
to condemn Rush Limbaugh - perhaps his strongest political supporter - 
who said that the torture in Abu Ghraib was a "brilliant maneuver" and 
that the photos were "good old American pornography," and that the 
actions portrayed were simply those of "people having a good time and 
needing to blow off steam."

This new political viciousness by the President and his supporters is 
found not only on the campaign trail, but in the daily operations of 
our democracy. They have insisted that the leaders of their party in 
the Congress deny Democrats any meaningful role whatsoever in shaping 
legislation, debating the choices before us as a people, or even to 
attend the all-important conference committees that reconcile the 
differences between actions by the Senate and House of Representatives.

The same meanness of spirit shows up in domestic policies as well. 
Under the Patriot Act, Muslims, innocent of any crime, were picked up, 
often physically abused, and held incommunicado indefinitely. What 
happened in Abu Ghraib was difference not of kind, but of degree.

Differences of degree are important when the subject is torture. The 
apologists for what has happened do have points that should be heard 
and clearly understood. It is a fact that every culture and every 
politics sometimes expresses itself in cruelty. It is also undeniably 
true that other countries have and do torture more routinely, and far 
more brutally, than ours has. George Orwell once characterized life in 
Stalin's Russia as "a boot stamping on a human face forever." That was 
the ultimate culture of cruelty, so ingrained, so organic, so 
systematic that everyone in it lived in terror, even the terrorizers. 
And that was the nature and degree of state cruelty in Saddam Hussein's 
Iraq.

We all know these things, and we need not reassure ourselves and should 
not congratulate ourselves that our society is less cruel than some 
others, although it is worth noting that there are many that are less 
cruel than ours. And this searing revelation at Abu Ghraib should lead 
us to examine more thoroughly the routine horrors in our domestic 
prison system.

But what we do now, in reaction to Abu Ghraib will determine a great 
deal about who we are at the beginning of the 21st century. It is 
important to note that just as the abuses of the prisoners flowed 
directly from the policies of the Bush White House, those policies 
flowed not only from the instincts of the president and his advisors, 
but found support in shifting attitudes on the part of some in our 
country in response to the outrage and fear generated by the attack of 
September 11th.

The president exploited and fanned those fears, but some otherwise 
sensible and levelheaded Americans fed them as well. I remember reading 
genteel-sounding essays asking publicly whether or not the prohibitions 
against torture were any longer relevant or desirable. The same 
grotesque misunderstanding of what is really involved was responsible 
for the tone in the memo from the president's legal advisor, Alberto 
Gonzalez, who wrote on January 25, 2002, that 9/11 "renders obsolete 
Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and 
renders quaint some of its provisions."

We have seen the pictures. We have learned the news. We cannot unlearn 
it; it is part of us. The important question now is, what will we do 
now about torture. Stop it? Yes, of course.

But that means demanding all of the facts, not covering them up, as 
some now charge the administration is now doing. One of the 
whistleblowers at Abu Ghraib, Sergeant Samuel Provance, told ABC News a 
few days ago that he was being intimidated and punished for telling the 
truth. "There is definitely a coverup," Provance said. "I feel like I 
am being punished for being honest."

The abhorrent acts in the prison were a direct consequence of the 
culture of impunity encouraged, authorized and instituted by Bush and 
Rumsfeld in their statements that the Geneva Conventions did not apply. 
The apparent war crimes that took place were the logical, inevitable 
outcome of policies and statements from the administration.

To me, as glaring as the evidence of this in the pictures themselves 
was the revelation that it was established practice for prisoners to be 
moved around during ICRC visits so that they would not be available for 
visits. That, no one can claim, was the act of individuals. That was 
policy set from above with the direct intention to violate US values it 
was to be upholding. It was the kind of policy we see - and criticize 
in places like China and Cuba.

Moreover, the administration has also set up the men and women of our 
own armed forces for payback the next time they are held as prisoners. 
And for that, this administration should pay a very high price. One of 
the most tragic consequences of these official crimes is that it will 
be very hard for any of us as Americans - at least for a very long time 
- to effectively stand up for human rights elsewhere and criticize 
other governments, when our policies have resulted in our soldiers 
behaving so monstrously. This administration has shamed America and 
deeply damaged the cause of freedom and human rights everywhere, thus 
undermining the core message of America to the world. President Bush 
offered a brief and half-hearted apology to the Arab world - but he 
should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva 
Conventions.

He also owes an apology to the U.S. Army for cavalierly sending them 
into harm's way while ignoring the best advice of their commanders.

Perhaps most importantly of all, he should apologize to all those men 
and women throughout our world who have held the ideal of the United 
States of America as a shining goal, to inspire their hopeful efforts 
to bring about justice under a rule of law in their own lands.

Of course, the problem with all these legitimate requests is that a 
sincere apology requires an admission of error, a willingness to accept 
responsibility and to hold people accountable.

And President Bush is not only unwilling to acknowledge error. He has 
thus far been unwilling to hold anyone in his administration 
accountable for the worst strategic and military miscalculations and 
mistakes in the history of the United States of America.

He is willing only to apologize for the alleged erratic behavior of a 
few low-ranking enlisted people, who he is scapegoating for his policy 
fiasco.

In December of 2000, even though I strongly disagreed with the decision 
by the U.S. Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally 
cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that 
we are a nation of laws and not only accept the decision, but do what I 
could to prevent efforts to delegitimize George Bush as he took the 
oath of office as president.

I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency 
that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law and work at 
every turn to frustrate accountability…

So today, I want to speak on behalf of those Americans who feel that 
President Bush has betrayed our nation's trust, those who are horrified 
at what has been done in our name, and all those who want the rest of 
the world to know that we Americans see the abuses that occurred in the 
prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and secret locations as yet 
undisclosed as completely out of keeping with the character and basic 
nature of the American people and at odds with the principles on which 
America stands.

I believe we have a duty to hold President Bush accountable - and I 
believe we will. As Lincoln said at our time of greatest trial, "We - 
even we here - hold the power, and bear the responsibility."