Senator Durbin apologized yesterday for his earlier remarks. Frankly, I have to wonder why - has our country come to the point where those who oppose torture must apologize for opposing it? Apparently so. In recent months we've seen:
the senior Bush legal advisor who wrote or approved the majority of memos justifying torture and secret detention was nominated and approved by the Senate to be Attorney General;
the senior officer in charge of Abu Ghraib promoted;
a lieutenant in the Navy seals acquited for the beating death of a detainee in his custody, and then promoted;
the Bush regime has defied a Supreme Court ruling regarding prisoner access to legal protections
And now, Republicans in Congress want to cut funding for the International Committee of the Red Cross because the ICRC has reported on the many prisoner abuses and violations of international law committed by the U.S.
There was no apology needed. Not from Durbin, not from anyone else, not even from the torturers. I do hope someday to see those responsible for the torture, i.e. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Gonzalez, standing up in court to explain why they should not be punished for their crimes. But apologies? It's far too late for that.
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