"You will know the truth and the truth will make you flinch before it sets you free."
It's a saying passed down by friends of the Baptist preacher Carlyle Marney, He doesn't seem to have included the line in any of his writings or published sermons, but he appears to be stuck with until somebody steps forward to claim it for someone else.
We are in the grip of one of those massive flinches right now as we digest the summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture as a tool of US policy.
Some of us feel blindsided by the release of hundreds of pages detailing horrendous acts committed in our name. But not everyone. The conversation has been going on for more than a decade. In 2006, I decided to stop just talking about torture and start recording what I knew, what I suspected and what I feared about my country's decent into officially sanctioned torture.
I'm indebted to those who held the light so others could read the handwriting on the wall.
Here, for what it's worth, is one person's progression of posts — some original, much borrowed —tracking how the wind's been blowing on torture as an American pursuit.
Here, for what it's worth, is one person's progression of posts — some original, much borrowed —tracking how the wind's been blowing on torture as an American pursuit.
March 06 2006 | Mr. Conyers Steps Up
October 17 2006 | Military Commissions Act of 2006 | Two Centuries of American
Democracy Undone with the Stroke of a Pen
March 09 2007 | Iraq Four Years On | In Search of Moral Footing
February 15 2008 | Senator McCain Said What?
March 10 2008 | Hey; this is America, we don't torture
November 03 2008 | a last word on November 3, 2008
August 31 2009 | Torture Debate Lost in Maze
January 21 2010 | A letter to Senator-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts
June 11 2010 | Torture: Are You Convinced?
November 09 2010 | The Tortured Logic of Our Times | Expecting More from Our Leaders
June 10 2011 | Martin Marty on Torture, Then + Now
November 05 2012 | Too Far to Turn Back Now | The Election of 2012
May 23 2013 | Barack Obama on the components of a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy
October 27, 2014 | If... National Security + Moral Law 01
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