Never Again

Trey Ellis

Novelist, Screenwriter, and Assistant Professor at Columbia University

What moral scale could the administration and Harry Reid possibly be using for not wanting to adequately and immediately determine which former government officials either sanctified or urged the CIA to torture? If these same former officials had sexually harassed their subordinates or falsified travel reports and pocketed even just tens of thousands of dollars would they still recommend that we just shrug and move on?

It seems that the enormity of the crimes that were committed in the name of this Republic has clouded the moral compass of some of our current leaders.

Sure, I’m a liberal and would love nothing more than to see justice served to those who ordered torture, lied us into a war in Iraq for the gain of their private armies and petrodollars and, by the way, stole an election. If I had one wish it would be to see Dick Cheney in an orange jumpsuit lifting weights in the big yard.

But no one is talking about the full-scale accountability that a truly healthy democracy would demand after such a reign of terror.

The least we can do now, all Americans, regardless of political stripe, is to stand up and say, "Torture? Never again." The Obama administration is usually so adept at looking forward to their historical relevance and legacy. The crimes that were urged and condoned are so profoundly un-American that to ignore them now is to forever lose a chunk of our essence as a democracy.

Where I totally agree with the president is in not prosecuting the individuals at the CIA. We need a high-functioning CIA now more than ever. If the Pakistani government continues to lay down like the Weimar Republic while the Taliban overruns their country then it seems not unreasonable to assume that sometime in the next two years the Taliban will take control of all of Pakistan and the "Overseas Contingency Operation" formerly known as the "War on Terror" will then be called the "Pakistan/Afghanistan War."

And we will have come full circle from 9/11, now fighting a Taliban hundreds of times stronger than they were back then. The question the next time will be can we fight an extremist enemy without becoming one ourselves.