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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (28856)	9/19/2006 2:59:19 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543573

I don't care about Republicans versus Democrats and do not consider Israel to be a country we should purposely undermine. Israel has the right to exist and it has the right to self-defense. Israel should have no more rights and no fewer than any other country. What I do care about is the callous trampling of basic human rights. The rule of law and a sense of human decency are both sorely needed in this world -- and sorely lacking. I am deeply concerned about the trend we have seen towards trying to justify and excuse criminal behavior rather than prosecuting it. I am concerned about foreign policy that seeks to legitimize torture, secret kidnappings and prisons that hold innocent people indefinitely without charges, and tribunals that deny any right to a legal defense. In the case of Israel, I am deeply concerned about intentional targeting of non-combatants. In my view all of the above represent the colossal failure of "the center" to stand up and be heard. You don't have to be radical left wing to say no to torture -- you just have to have a shred of your humanity left intact and a moral duty to speak up for those less fortunate than yourself. The Supreme Court itself has ruled that our prisoners are protected by the Geneva Conventions no matter what we call them. Yet we are asked to sit quietly why the people we elected look under every rock for ways to justify torture. In the case of Israel, the mounting evidence says that something has gone terribly wrong, but we are expected to sit obediently and say nothing because Israel is our "friend". I am ashamed of what has become of the US relationship to Israel -- I feel the shame of American complicity, by virtue of our silence, as Israeli policy becomes more and more openly hostile to basic human rights and basic human decency.