The New York Times
December 31, 2007
Editorial
Looking at America

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our
country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times
of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to
cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency
interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It
was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest
democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the
Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

It was not the first time in recent years we've felt this horror, this
sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless
behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001.

The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly
frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this
new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his
advisers panicked -- how they forgot that it is their responsibility
to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no
safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are
sacrificed.

Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America's
position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international
institutions and treaties, sullied America's global image, and
trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our
democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These
policies have fed the world's anger and alienation and have not made
any of us safer.

In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse,
sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and
Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been
called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians
with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to
defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens,
authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping
phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a
warrant.

We have read accounts of how the government's top lawyers huddled in
secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways
to circumvent the Geneva Conventions -- and both American and
international law -- to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely
without charges or judicial review.

Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow
Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors
to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare
prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it
didn't go just a bit too far and actually kill them.

The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national
unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies
far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat -- and
at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President
Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to
arrogate as much power as they could.

Hundreds of men, swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq,
were thrown into a prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so that the White
House could claim they were beyond the reach of American
laws. Prisoners are held there with no hope of real justice, only the
chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their
accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk
about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.

In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where
"high-value detainees" were subjected to ever more barbaric acts,
including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that
"experts" could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed,
after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans
would never know.

The C.I.A. contracted out its inhumanity to nations with no respect
for life or law, sending prisoners -- some of them innocents kidnapped
on street corners and in airports -- to be tortured into making false
confessions, or until it was clear they had nothing to say and so were
let go without any apology or hope of redress.

These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush's two terms
in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more
-- so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply
discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.

We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will
have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to
someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them
honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see,
once again, the reflection of the United States of America.