Dear Editor:
It's an interesting anthropological phenomenon that, even in the midst of enormous amounts of evidence to the contrary, humans continue to believe in the decency of those who exercise dominance over them.
Battered women, bruised and broken, insist upon the love their husbands have for them, with "he just gets angry sometimes" or "he doesn't really mean it when he does that" serving as the tragic and perennial platitudes.
It was, therefore, a breath of fresh air when Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) gave an alarmingly truthful answer to one of Wolf Blitzer's few interesting questions:
Blitzer: Senator Dodd, I want you to weigh in. When they clash, what's more important: human rights, or national security?
Dodd: Obviously, national security, keeping the country safe. When you take the oath of office on Jan. 20, you promise to do two things, and that is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and [to] protect our country against enemies, both foreign and domestic
For whatever reason, Americans are shockingly na've about the affairs of their government. We are told ours is a country which preserves human rights, doesn't abuse them; ours is a country which promotes democratic movements, doesn't stifle them; ours is a country which fights terrorists, doesn't harbor them.
But as you read this, CIA operatives are stoically torturing human beings at black sites in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, funds are making their way across the Atlantic to Islam Karimov, the leader of Uzbekistan, who has imprisoned his political opponents in psychiatric wards and whose police thugs boil to death that country's cultural dissenters. As you read this, Orlando Bosch, one of the organizers of the attack on Cubana Airlines flight 455, which killed all 73 civilians onboard, lives freely in Miami.
If Venezuela were harboring a terrorist who committed such an atrocity, would there be any question of that country's illegitimacy in regards to human rights?
Like those medieval townspeople who believed in the unquestionable divinity of their king, we're too deluded to face up to the awful reality of our government's appalling actions.
Brian McLooneClass of 2009
