An Officer's Obligation -- Say No to Torture

Matthew Alexander, Air Force officer, and leader of the interrogations team that located Abu Musab al Zarqawi, is very well respected. I have written about him before and he has been on with Keith and Rachel several times.

He is a wonderful, authoritative voice of reason in this discussion about torture. He has written a book called How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq.

He has a post up at Huffington Post that is a spanking to a certain extent to the other officers and military who let their values and their morals be compromised by the higher ups and by the Bush Mal-Administration.

The first thing he says is this:

As a former active duty military officer, it is troubling to me that other military officers followed unlawful orders to torture or abuse prisoners. Military officers have a sacred responsibility that is embedded in their oath of office: "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same..."

He goes on to remind us all that in the 8th Amendment to the Constitution of our great Country we are told we must prohibit cruelty to ANY PERSON. Yet, our former president and vice president ordered this done.

As I said this is a good and scathing piece and Matthew (not his real name) does a great job. He also knows of what he speaks. When he wrote his book, he tried to get it approved by the Department of Defense and they redacted it so much he couldn't publish it.

Please take a few minutes to read what he wrote. It is at Huffington Post and is really a good read.