She laments this sad state of affairs:
This episode is not just about the destruction of videotapes and those involved in the decision to do so. The thrust of my February 2003 briefing was about the administration's use of enhanced interrogation techniques since 9/11. My contemporaneous letter questioned whether the White House had determined that those techniques were consistent with "the principles and policies of the United States" and whether the president had approved them.
I never got answers to my questions, nor has Congress ever received the Justice Department legal memoranda that we asked for.
The rest of the world is watching closely. We still have not recovered from the black eye of Abu Ghraib.
These latest revelations do enormous damage to our international standing and credibility — and are additional evidence that we stand at the brink of constitutional crisis.
Ironically, Ms. Harman fails to acknowledge why the world is watching closely, or where these revelations come from. It's the INTERNET, dummie, because no US mainstream news outlet will touch anything that refutes the official Bushean narrative. But there were the Abu Ghraib pix plastered all over the Internet for the world to see.
And even more ironic, Ms. Harmon is the sponsor of HR 1955, the "
The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," which contains – among dozens of disgusting provisions – these gems:
(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.
(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.
So, since the Internet is the source of our shame and leaks stuff that has no business being in the public domain, let's kill the Internet. Beats hell out of killing the embarrassing and inhuman policies and practices.
So, cynic that I am, I call bullshit on Ms. Harman and her
Homegrown Terrorism Prevention bill. If she had the slightest concern for US credibility, she'd work to change those policies, not dismantle the means by which word of them reaches the outside world.
wp