Last month, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said of herself and other Democratic leaders in Congress, “We were not – I repeat – we were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.” This month, we’ve learned that Pelosi was informed of specific instances of waterboarding as early as September, 2002.
A year ago, it seemed that torture was a straightforward partisan issue – with Republicans for George W. Bush’s torture policies and Democrats against. It seemed that if the USA could just get a Democratic President along with a Democratic Congress, we’d get rid of the Bush Republican torture policies lickety split.
Since then, the issue has become less partisan, as we’ve learned that Barack Obama is not the steadfast opponent of torture he once made himself out to be. Obama has opposed lawsuits by people claiming to have been tortured by the U.S. government, using claims of extraordinary presidential powers, just as George W. Bush did. If Nancy Pelosi’s connections with torture are investigated, who else among the congressional Democrats will be implicated?
If Americans are to rid themselves of the dark shadow of torture, it seems that they will have to move away from both the Republicans and the Democrats, and either establish a stronger tradition of political independence, or find an alternative political party that regards the Constitution as something more than just an obstacle in the pursuit of power.
