The Salazars' Betrayal

The Salazar Brothers, Ken and John, betrayed Colorado last week with their vote to turn the United States into a law of torturers and gulags. The interrogation techniques their "yes" vote on the Republicans' effort at absolute power for the executive made legal the United States's use of the same interrogation techniques the Vietcong used so effectively on our airmen and that the Khmer Rouge used to great impact on their population. Further, the vague language of the bill allows Bush and Rumsfeld to make "enemy combattants" out of effectively anyone they please. So the scenario is now we take anyone we want off the street and if we never want to let them go, we declare them enemy combatants and never give them a trial. If we do, we waterboard a confession out of them - perfectly legal since the act allows coerced testimony - or find someone to present "hearsay" evidence against them. Then we put them in a prison overseas, away from the prying eyes of American journalists and the citizenry, just as the Nazis put their most notorious death camps outside of Germany.

The betrayal goes even further than passing the worst possible measure for America. It demeans our national values. No one who isn't willing to torture the nine year old daughter of a suspected terrorist to extract "information", most likely useless, from the terrorist should support someone else doing it. It gives Bush and his CIA torture squad a free pass for illegal actions under the War Crimes act and the Geneva Conventions and it makes us the enemy I served to defeat - the Soviet Union.

"The bill I voted for today was the best bill we could reasonably expect in this highly charged political environment," said Ken Salazar on his web site in his mea culpa for voting for the measure. "Due to the many controversial and far-reaching implications of this bill, I believe it would be appropriate to force Congressional review of this bill in five years. I have concerns with this bill, but on balance it meets my personal view of what America needs to get the job done."

Will Congress review the bill in five years? Are we assuming a Democratic takeover of power and a less power-mad president (remember the legal maneuverings they took to keep Jose Padilla in prison for four years without being accused of anything)? Was a bill that allows torture, that eliminates habeas corpus for those held as enemy combatants and that gives criminals a free pass the best we can come up with? And finally, does the Senator not imagine that Republicans will use the twelve Democratic votes for the measure as a proof of "bipartisanship?"

In short, Ken and John Salazar have betrayed the people of Colorado, the nation and our Democratic party that got them elected despite the Republican headwind of two years ago. If I had wanted to vote for a Repubican-lite, I'd have voted for their opponents.

Both deserve to be ex-lawmakers in the next Democratic primary.