South Chicagoland Young Democrats: The Blog

An Iranian diplomat that was recently freed from captivity in Iraq has alleged that he was interrogated and tortured by the CIA. The diplomat was taken captive by an unknown group of armed men several months ago while working in Iraq. The US army denied any involvent and continues to deny involvement. Despite this denial, the diplomat appeared an Iranian TV yesterday claiming that he was taken prisoner by Iraqi troops under the command of Americans. While the White House and the Pentagon are both claiming that there was no such involvement and that this man was never a prisoner of the CIA, we must ask if we really believe them.

Ever since President Bush made it clear that he believes in the use of forms of torture and that we discovered that there were secret prison camps around the world containing detainees in the war against terrorism, we cannot ever truly know whether or not this man is telling the truth. As an American citizen, I cannot help but think that if I do not know whether or not to believe our government, what must the rest of the world think. What is worse is that this claims are coming from Iran, a nation that is currently under scrutiny because of its nuclear program and because of the recent fiasco with the captive British sailors and marines. One would think that the US would be more credible it does not appear as such.

While this is all merely speculation on my part, I cannot help but think that if I feel this way, more people, notably the rest of the world, must feel similarly. This is the curse of President Bush’s abysmal foreign policy, or rather, lack there of. His public feelings on torture and the treatment of prisoners at camps like Guantanamo Bay have damned our country to forever be questioned by the global community. How will we ever be able to achieve success in this “war on terror” if in the eyes of the rest of the world we are no better than the terrorists that we are fighting?

Some food for thought from the brilliant mind of Mike Kean, your friendly Sergeant at Arms.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 7th, 2007 at 8:31 pm and is filed under General, International Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.