Who Are We?
By SEAN HANNON

September 28, 2005

The American closet is close to bursting with the amount of skeletons we are cramming into it, and I must ask --- to what depths of shame and debasement are we going to allow ourselves to sink?

New accounts of the hideous and senseless torture of detainees in Fallujah, Iraq were testified to by two sergeants and army Captain Ian Fishback of the 82nd Airborne, a West Point graduate and son of a Vietnam veteran. It can be no longer claimed that the torture of detainees at Abu Graib was an isolated incident by a few “bad apples”.

Worse for us, the testimony alleges that the captain’s attempts to report the abuses were rebuffed by his superiors, and that army leadership was more interested in getting the names of those reporting the abuses than in the names of the alleged torturers.

We have been given credible accounts of American war crimes now by independent human rights observers, FBI agents, and decorated West Pointers. When are we as citizens going to respond??? When are the church leaders in this country going to raise a thunderous clamor against this soulless barbarity threatening to damn us and our children for generations to come?

Our leadership doesn’t get it, and it falls to us to lead them. To that end, I took it upon myself last winter to raise a petition against torture in Weston, to send a community message to Shays, Dodd and Lieberman that we opposed the use of torture and that all the loopholes allowing military intelligence to conduct torture should be closed.

From February to April of this year, I took about an hour out of each day to collect signatures for this petition. I stood in front of Peter’s Market, combed the school pickup lines, went to Little League signups, local sports and theatre events, anywhere I could to encounter my Weston neighbors in large public areas.

For all that effort, I was only able to garner 216 signatures. Most of the responses I got from people who disagreed with my petition were in the nature of a civil, polite demur challenging the efficacy of my effort. It wasn’t a town issue, they said. Some resented my bringing attention to such ugliness within their bucolic environment. And a few of my Weston neighbors declared, in a clear effort to bait me, that they liked torture, and that they hoped we keep on torturing. It was a sad and profound learning experience for me.

I knew going in that the petition would be a hard sell. Most weren’t ready to look at it then. Maybe things are different with the passage of time. I still have the petition with the signatures if another Westonite wishes to take up the charge. About 120 more signatures are needed to trigger a Special Town meeting to vote on it and send it to our representatives. I was assured by the town attorney that the signatures would remain valid, and that there is no expiration date attending them.