Integrity, Moral Authority, and Some Inconvenient Truths
    By Stacy Bannerman
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Thursday 28 September 2006

    "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts." General Colin Powell's statement came after a Congressional "compromise" that would legalize torture and condone trials with secret evidence, among other things. The nation whose Constitution [1] includes the "right to a fair and speedy trial," the country that crows about its moral values and commitment to human rights, the government whose leader repeatedly states that "we do not condone torture," is preparing to sign off on a document that makes those policies, protections, and professed moral values a lie.

    There is no moral authority without integrity.

    We cannot be a beacon of light for the world while shrouded in shadows. America is not who we have said that we are. And the world is becoming wise to what we have tried to hide.

    We have tried to hide the hideously uncomfortable fact that America has pursued an unscrupulous foreign policy predicated upon pre-emptive strikes, and initiated a deadly, seemingly interminable, conflict as a matter of first choice rather than last, necessary resort. Self-proclaimed patriots have parroted the phrase about supporting the troops while sending them to die in a war based on lies. Those same summer patriots have borne false witness, standing silently by as the Veterans Administration has broken every promise that's been made to take care of the troops when they get home.

    The Bush administration is now asserting that the mission in Iraq is to bring democracy to that nation, while methodically stripping away the very basis of democracy in America. We have acquiesced to the unprecedented destruction of civil rights and liberties, and the invasion of privacy, which seems not to matter much to most in the "home of the free." Not enough to get them involved, anyway, which has become par for the course. Never before has the silent majority been quite so mute.

    At last tally, about 63% of Americans said they don't support the war in Iraq, but are nonetheless (a)pathetically condoning it by refusing to engage democracy, failing to vote, to protest, and to mobilize. I spoke with one of them this summer, when I spent six weeks in Washington, DC, meeting with congressmen and senators, and conducting Operation House Call, a project of Military Families Speak Out. One day, when the heat index soared to 110 degrees, hot enough to melt the tar between the steps in front of the Russell Senate Building, a family passed by our vigil of empty combat boots. The distraught mother of two talked about how upset she was about the war, and asked why more people weren't doing something.

    When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, "Me? Nothing. I've got responsibilities. I'm on vacation."

    You do your children no favors by taking them on a tour of the political house of horror that Capitol Hill has become while being an absentee citizen yourself.

    If we really cared about children, if we were truly a nation immersed in family values, we would recognize that when we consent to torture, we create a standard of legalized brutality that flies in the face of everything we've ever told our kids about who we are, and who they should become. We would know that when we tacitly agree to keep sending soldiers to fight in a war we don't support - an unnecessary, illegal, and immoral war, according to the overwhelming, condemning evidence - then we, too, are culpable, and damned.

    We have hawked our moral compass for the illusion of Homeland Security. We have become a nation that easily excuses violations of law, democracy, and morality, invoking the free pass that we purchased with World War II, and guaranteed with the Marshall Plan and the Good Neighbor policy. For decades, though, we've made payments drawn from the account of power and privilege.

    With the profligate spending of the politically insolvent Bush administration, and the war in Iraq, this nation is on the verge of moral bankruptcy. And now Congress is moving to ratify the revisions to Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, along with the Wiretapping bill. This would change the War Crimes Act of 1996 to provide retroactive immunity from prosecution for wrongdoing, thereby giving President Bush and his administration a personal "get out of jail free" card.

    We have no moral basis whatsoever to congratulate ourselves for what we're doing to win the unwinnable war on terror. Of course the world is "beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." The only question is: Why aren't we?

    [1] The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War amendments, and it includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. It requires the states to provide equal protection under the law to all persons (not only to citizens). - Wikipedia

    -------

    Stacy Bannerman is a member of Military Families Speak Out, the creator of Operation House Call, and a co-creator of Eviction 06: America Cleans House! She is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of When the War Came Home: The Inside Story of Reservists and the Families They Leave Behind (Continuum Publishing, 2006). Her husband served one year in Iraq with the Army National Guard 81st Brigade.