It is time for new leadership in U.S.

Mona Charen (Dec. 22 column) seeks to minimize the Bush regime’s flagrant use of torture by pointing to a more grisly example by our Saudi friends in al-Qaida in Iraq (a secret list just captured from al-Qaida reveals over half their members are Saudis.) Republican apologists have conveniently cloudy/short memories.

I remember a story that didn’t get the play it deserved. The doctor at Abu Ghraib who did the autopsies revealed that prisoners who had been reported as “slipping on a bar of soap, or tripping and hitting their head” had actually died from blunt force injuries.

Bush’s interrogators, encouraged by Torture Enabler Alberto Gonzalez, have taken the prisoners to secret prisons in Eastern Europe so the dead bodies won’t turn up to give their terrible mute evidence. Most of these poor devils have been identified as evil agents by their neighbors who are mad at them over some old grudge, and the $5,000 they get for turning their neighbors in is a happy bonus.

I was in the Marines. Some old hands told me they used to turn the stubborn Viet Cong over to our South Korean allies. The sergeant who revealed this said he could not watch them work, as it made him sick. When I was taught history in grade school, I was told we were the good guys. It is time for new leadership in the United States. We need to get up out of the mud and blood of lawless torture of the innocent and the guilty. Experts tell us that torture rarely reveals any useful information — you just get wild stories from men who will say anything to stop the pain.

Those who want to pretend it didn’t happen can watch Fox News’ right-wing reporters, who will never tell you anything bad about the Bush regime.

Jim Hutchison

Marysville