ok-critique my next ltte re: the tapes

[w8liftinglady]

The recently disclosed destruction of tapes by the CIA is troublesome at best,and the opening of a horrific Pandora's Box at worst.CIA Director Michael Hayden inferred the tapes were destroyed "to protect the identity of the CIA interrogators".Such a concern for their employees-is that why the President pardoned I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby after the identity of Valerie Plame,a covert CIA agent,was leaked to the press?

The cause probably goes much deeper.

The Pentagon has declared a "child" is a human under the age of 16.Their numbers are vague,but since 2001,over 900 children have been held in American
facilities like Abu Ghraib,Bagrham Air Base,and Guantanamo Bay.Some detainees were as young as 8.

13-year-old Mohammed Ismail Agha was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2002 and detained without charge or trial for over a year, first at Bagram and then at Guantánamo Bay. He was held in solitary confinement and subjected to sleep deprivation.
A Canadian, Omar Khadr, was 15 in 2002 when he was captured in Afghanistan and interned at Guantánamo. For 2½ years, he was allowed no contact with a lawyer or with his family.
A Pentagon investigation last year by Maj. Gen. George Fay reported that in January 2004, a leashed but unmuzzled military guard dog was allowed into a cell holding two children. The intention was for the dog to " 'go nuts on the kids,' barking and scaring them." The children were screaming and the smaller one tried to hide behind the larger, the report said, as a soldier allowed the dog to get within about one foot of them.
Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib, told Maj. General Fay about visiting a weeping 11-year-old detainee in the prison's notorious Cellblock 1B, which housed prisoners designated high risk. "He told me he was almost 12," General Karpinski recalled, and that "he really wanted to see his mother, could he please call his mother." Children like this 11 year old held at Abu Ghraib had been denied the right to see their parents, a lawyer, or anyone else.
In 2006,Presidential Counsel John Yoo publicly argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.

What did these CIA Tapes,and others like them,contain?What else will be revealed as more whistle blowers,acting on conscience,come forward?As both the mother and daughter of a Veteran,I fear for our reputation as a benevolent democracy.How does the world see us now?How will our future POWs be treated?How will expatriated Americans be treated?

Will our future generations be classified with Bataan,Auschwitz,the Killing Fields of Cambodia?The time has come for answers,not more questions.

[louis-t]

1. Too horrified to respond.

No words.

[seemunkee]

2. A little long, but you laid it out very clearly

You've had enough published that you would know their rules.

This sentence is awkward and could use reworking.
Such a concern for their employees-is that why the President pardoned I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby after the identity of Valerie Plame,a covert CIA agent,was leaked to the press?

[Whisp]

3. great ltte, but this part....

""reputation as a benevolent democracy.""
should not be included - it is just not true as America has been involved in so much destruction of people and property around the globe in wars and military actions to serve the interests of the checkbooks of the very few at the top.