one viewer's response to "Hard Measures":
"I am deeply disturbed that you have chosen to give a platform to ex-CIA director Jose Rodriguez to defend the practice of water boarding and the destruction of 92 videos in which this torture practice is used. While it is your right to have this individual on your show I'd like to point out that the record of the mainstream covering the stories of those who have endured torture and indefinite detention has been sorely lacking. For example a large number of the American public has been kept from the fact that the torture and indefinite detention of many under the Global War On Terrorism was done so under erroneous and suspect circumstances. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld all knew that most of those detained were innocent. Wilkerson is quoted as saying, "more and more clear many of the men were innocent, or at a minimum their guilt was impossible to determine let alone prove in any court of law, civilian or military." . And yet nearly 200 remain in Guantanamo and over 2000 in Bagram under the Obama Presidency.
That the debate over torture is reduced to whether it works or not with regard to national security is a travesty and is as unconscionable as the torture and indefinite detention inflicted upon those captured. It is inhumane and immoral...period. Furthermore I should hope you would ask Jose Rodriguez that if there was nothing wrong with water boarding then why feel compelled to destroy the 92 videos? I shall also hope that in the near future you choose to interview those who have been detained and tortured.
Sincerely,
Jill McLaughlin, World Can't Wait National Steering Committee
