Flags a'waving

Proofing of the galleys for CROW OF CONNEMARA is finished. Next step, copy the pages on which I've made changes, then send the changed pages back to Joshua at DAW Books.

Before their deadline, too. Hope I'm not setting a hopeless precedent for other writers...

Here's the flagged pages.

Torture

I've been resisting commenting on political stuff as much as possible, but the CIA report released this week, well...

On today’s FACE THE NATION, Senator John McCain, one of the few Republicans (if not the only one) who came out in favor of releasing the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report of torture, said that the practices outlined in that report “fly in the face of everything that America values and stands for… It's about us: what we were, what we are, and what we should be, and that's a nation that does not engage in these kinds of violations of the fundamental basic human rights that we guaranteed when we declared our independence.”

I don’t agree with Senator McCain on much, but I wholeheartedly agree with him here. Absolutely, the attacks of 9/11 were terrible and cowardly. Without a doubt, some enemies of the U.S. have done (and continue to do) horrible and grotesque things to their prisoners. But the actions that we have taken as a nation in the wake of this are odious.

None of what has been done to use requires that we must to stoop to the same level of barbarity. None of that is an excuse for us to become just like them. Remember, at our behest, Japanese officers were executed for having waterboarded U.S. prisoners in the wake of WWII. We signed the Geneva Conventions and swore to uphold them. We have, as a nation, gone after those who broke those conventions and committed war crimes and brought them to justice.

And now, the evidence is there in front of us that we are no different. The evidence says to the world that we’ll condemn and jail and even execute those who torture… unless, of course, the people who are doing so are Americans.

Where is the outrage? Why haven’t those named as authorizing and condoning these tactics -- some of them at the highest levels of government -- been charged and arrested? Why is it a horror and a war crime and terrorism when someone does this to an American citizen, but ‘necessary’ when we do it?

My congratulations to Senator McCain for having the courage to speak out while others (like Senator Chambliss, who also appeared on the show) make shameless excuses and minimize these tactics: done in the name of you and me and every citizen of this country.

At one point, Senator McCain said as an aside “...these EITs -- isn't that Orwellian, calling them EITs?” Indeed, Senator McCain, indeed.