Jan Tromp van de Volkskrant 3

Het probleem met correspondenten is dat ze teveel achter hun computer zitten om de zienswijze van de autoriteiten, die op dit moment aan de macht zijn, over te pennen. Het voetwerk, het gewone journalistieke voetwerk doen ze te weinig. Jan Tromp van de Volkskrant had gisteren niet achter zijn pc moeten zitten, maar in Washington moeten lopen, op weg naar Ray McGovern. 'Ray McGovern and 15 others took action today in the halls of Congress. The 16 donned orange jumpsuits similar to those worn by detainees at Guantánamo Bay. They wore gags over their mouths decorated with one word - torture. Not another word needed to be said as they walked the halls of Congress. McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA, also returned his Intelligence Commendation Award medallion which was given to him for "especially commendable service." He delivered the medal to Congressman Pete Hoekstra along with the letter below. "I Do Not Wish to Be Associated With Torture. Hon. Pete Hoekstra, Chair House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Washington, DC.
Dear Congressman Hoekstra:
As a matter of conscience, I am returning the Intelligence Commendation Award medallion given me for "especially commendable service" during my 27-year career in CIA. The issue is torture, which inhabits the same category as rape and slavery - intrinsically evil. I do not wish to be associated, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture.
Reports in recent years that CIA personnel were torturing detainees were highly disturbing. Confirmation of a sort came last fall, when CIA Director Porter Goss and Dick Cheney - dubbed by the Washington Post "Vice President for Torture" - descended on Sen. John McCain to demand that the CIA be exempted from his amendment's ban on torture. Subsequent reports implicated agency personnel in several cases of prisoner abuse in Iraq, including a few in which detainees died during interrogation.
The obeisance of CIA directors George Tenet and Porter Goss in heeding illegal White House directives has done irreparable harm to the CIA and the country - not to mention those tortured and killed. That you, as Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, show more deference to the White House than dedication to your oversight responsibilities under the Constitution is another profound disappointment. How can you and your counterpart, Sen. Pat Roberts, turn a blind eye to torture - letting some people get away, literally, with murder - and square that with your conscience?
If German officials who were ordered to do such things in the 1930s had spoken out early and loudly enough, the German people might have been alerted to the atrocities being perpetrated in their name and tried harder to stop them. When my grandchildren ask, "What did you do, Grandpa, to stop the torture," I want to be able to tell them that I tried to honor my oath, taken both as an Army officer and an intelligence officer, to defend the Constitution of the United States - and that I not only spoke out strongly against the torture, but also sought a symbolic way to dissociate myself from it.
We Americans have become accustomed to letting our institutions do our sinning for us. I abhor the corruption of the CIA in the past several years, believe it to be beyond repair, and do not want my name on any medallion associated with it. Please destroy this one.
Yours truly, Ray McGovern' Lees verder:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030206A.shtml Meer over Ray McGovern:
http://faculty.schreiner.edu/tomwells/ray_mcgovern_bio.htm Beste Jan Tromp, wij als lezers van een krant in Nederland kunnen niet aanwezig zijn bij een dergelijke illustrerende gebeurtenis in Washington. Daar hebben we jou voor nodig of de progressieve journalisten van bijvoorbeeld Truthout die erover berichten, in tegenstelling tot de commerciele massamedia die erover zwijgen. De rest, over bijvoorbeeld India en Bush enzovoorts, kunnen we zelf wel van het internet plukken of zien we zelf wel op televisie. Laat die berichtgeving maar aan de grote persbureau's over, die beschikken over meer mensen en meer kennis en meer professionele propaganda. Maar aan de dwarsliggers, de oppositie op straat, de oprechte tegenstem besteden ze geen aandacht. Dat kun jij als 'onafhankelijke' journalist wel. Dus rennen Jan, naar McGovern die 27 jaar lang voor de CIA werkte en nu zijn medaille teruggeeft. D'r is iets aan de hand onder fatsoenlijke Amerikanen waarover we niets van jou vernemen. Aan de slag kerel. Het voetwerk. Met vriendelijke groet, je collega Stan van Houcke.