A Moral Nation

A lot of people are probably upset that John Kiriakou, a 14 year CIA veteran has been sentenced to only 30 months in prison for naming a covert agent involved in the torture of  alleged terrorist Abu Zubida, waterboarding him at least 83 times.  It could have been 20 years but deals were made. But of course former Vice President Dick Cheney who by his own admission authorized torture and former President George W Bush who said "damn right" when asked if he had personally ordered prisoners to be tortured got off without so much as two seconds in the naughty chair.  Nobody from that infamous administration ever was punished for revealing the identity of CIA operative Valery Plame for revealing one of their scams either, but of course Republicans have special dispensation and even when they don't, they're so adept at manipulating public hysteria and anger over events that they carry some blame in having precipitated that they can pretty much do what the damn well please. 

They're so adept at turning the hysteria and tapping into the American malaise; our racism, our anger our ignorance, that they just simply got away with it.   Who's to blame for these horrors?  The GOP? Sorry, we don't get off so easy. It's our fault. We allowed it. We did nothing.

Yes, people like me and perhaps you bitched and moaned and were called traitors and America-haters for our efforts, but they got away with it while we were complaining about taxes and trembling from the fear of terrorists and gibbering about Muslims instituting Sharia law and creeping socialism.

Our sense of shame was the first victim of the Bush administration, the first casualty of Bush's wars and not only are we unrepentant about the destruction of Iraq, we're still feeling sorry for ourselves and we're still protecting monsters and persecuting those who still bother to care. We're not safe here at home, we tell ourselves and our lives are so hard we cry while the world looks on with loathing and disgust.