The Dog usually writes in the 3rd person, but this is too serious a topic for that. That bit will be back tomorrow.
Dear Mr. President;
I write you on Torture Accountability day to ask in the names of those whose voices have been silenced for justice. I write today in the names of the men in the CIA Inspector Generals report who died while in our custody and under interrogation. This report was prepared five years ago now, and in this report the IG forwarded eight cases for criminal investigation to the Department of Justice. Since that time no action has been taken on deaths of these men. Mr. President, this can not be allowed to continue.
It is no surprise the former administration did not move to act; I do not need to detail to you their cavalier attitude to the rule of law. However the continued failure to investigate what could very well be war crimes is no longer their responsibility; it is your administrations now. Mr. President, the dead cry out for justice. They can not act, they have passed beyond this vale of tears, but the need for justice for them is a shared need of all citizens.
There can be no true justice when we leave crimes, known crimes uninvestigated and unprosecuted. This is the very reasoning behind the long overdue prosecution of James Seale for the murders of Henry Dee and Charles Moore in 1964. Though these two Civil Rights Era murderers had been unsolved for decades it was important to investigate and try the man ultimately responsible for the crimes. This is a basic human need for justice. It is the reason there is no statute of limitations on murder, for to take the life of a fellow human being without justification is one thing all cultures recognize as needing retribution and redress. Our system is based on the rule of law, so it is the duty of the Government to act in redressing this most horrible of acts.
To date Mr. President, your Government has not acted. Sir, please, this must not be allowed to continue. It does not matter at all who the dead men where. It does not matter they were not our citizens. It does not matter at all that our nation was attacked. It does not matter at all that we were at war when they died during interrogation. All that matters is they are dead, and there was and is sufficient evidence for the CIA's own Inspector General to forward the cases for criminal investigation. The dead men can not demand justice for themselves, so I must.
Mr. President, the most horrible aspect of these cases is they came to light in an investigation of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques", which you and I would in all candor call torture. This means these men have the very real chance of being tortured to death, by the United States of America. Sir, you are an attorney, you know we must have a system of laws and justice which is fair and evenly applied if we are to have the "more perfect union" of the Framers intent. To allow the Department of Justice to simply put this matter in a drawer because it is politically hard is to leave the dead crying out for justice unfulfilled.
Will you leave them to cry for justice for 40 years like Henry Dee and Charles Moore? Will you allow the shame we rightly feel over the failure to bring Dee's and Moore's killer to justice to be replicated for the eight as of now anonymous men who died under interrogation and perhaps torture at our hands? The politicians at the time of Dee and Moore's murder felt they could not act and as a result their killer was allowed to live more than half his life as a free man. This, Sir, was a travesty of justice, please do not make another by allowing justice already too long denied to the dead prisoners to continue.
In the end, is potentially great about America is our instance on justice. We redeemed ourselves in the case of Dee and Moore, but it is not a one time thing Mr. President, it must be done continually and with courage. For as long as there are those who would act lawlessly, there must be law and justice to preserve our ideals. Today is the day to act. I ask you as a citizen and as a voice for those who can no longer speak, enforce the law, provide justice. It is the American thing to do.
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