Moral Authority

Think about this for a moment. The MSM, Sectretary of Defense, the US Military and the American people are all outraged by the Taliban video showing captured Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl. But, we no longer have the moral authority to be outraged. Bush, Cheney and Co. squandered that in the name of torture. We have also broken international law. Juan Cole sums up nicely..

In fact, as I was reminded by a former ambassador, the Bush-Cheney-Yoo-Armitage gutting of US conformance with the Geneva Conventions really makes it difficult for Washington credibly to complain about the treatment of any of our captured soldiers. The Taliban could hold the soldier hostage forever if they follow the principle put forward by Sen. Lindsey Graham. They could (God forbid) put him in stress positions naked and threaten to release the pictures to his family, and they would have done nothing that Rumsfeld's Pentagon had not done routinely and on a vast scale.