By Robert Scheer
05/28/08 “TruthDig”
Are we Americans truly savages or merely tone-deaf in matters of morality, and therefore more guilty of terminal indifference than venality? It’s a question demanding an answer in response to the publication of the detailed 370-page report [pdf] on U.S. complicity in torture, issued last week by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
Because the report was widely cited in the media and easily accessed as a pdf file on the Internet, it is fair to assume that those of our citizens who remain ignorant of the extent of their government’s commitment to torture as an official policy have made a choice not to be informed. A less appealing conclusion would be that they are aware of the heinous acts fully authorized by our president but conclude that such barbarism is not inconsistent with that American way of life that we celebrate.
But that troubling assessment of moral indifference is contradicted by the scores of law enforcement officers, mostly from the FBI, who were so appalled by what they observed as routine official practice in the treatment of prisoners by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo that they risked their careers to officially complain. A few brave souls from the FBI even compiled a “war crimes file,” suggesting the unthinkable — that we might come to be judged as guilty by the standard we have imposed on others. Superiors in the Justice Department soon put a stop to such FBI efforts to hold CIA agents and other U.S. officials accountable for the crimes they committed.
[…]
via TruthDig
see
Rice’s Lies About Torture by Dave Lindorff
FBI agents created “war crimes file” documenting US torture
On Torture and “Administration Interrogation Rules” by Prof Marjorie Cohn
Philippe Sands on the White House Role in Sanctioning Torture
Dandelion Salad 
Pingback: Kids In America(n Torture Camps) - Why Does the Media Cover Up War Crimes? « Dandelion Salad
Pingback: FBI Compiled “War Crimes” Dossier on Prisoner Abuse and Torture « Dandelion Salad