Right & Wrong

Here in the United States, the news has been filled with reportage, discussions and commentary on torture. Specifically, the focus has been on the role the United States has played in torturing people. It has been overwhelming for me. I find the images are far too powerful; they burn too swiftly and deeply into my mind. As a result, I have been uncharacteristically unwilling to read and listen and learn. Therefore, I am woefully under-informed right now. My sense is that there is a movement afoot to shine a bright light upon what the United States has done wrong, as well as to bring our national moral compass back to constitutional true north.

I know this: torture is wrong, legally and morally. I also know that torture is unsuccessful. The Geneva Conventions are not new and radical concepts, nor are they quaint and outdated constructs. They are what decent people have agreed to as standards of treatment for non-combatants and prisoners of war.

I am not a dove. As the daughter of a World War II veteran, I know that sometimes, far too often, war is absolutely necessary. But I also know that we are better than what some of our leaders have authorized and ordered and that which has been carried out over the last several years in our name.

During this season of remembrance and Yom HaShoah, the lessons are clear and echo harshly down through the decades.