“Waterboarding is torture,” Daniel Levin was to write.
Daniel Levin was no theorist and no protestor.
He was no troublemaking politician.
He was no table-pounding commentator.
Daniel Levin was an astonishingly patriotic American, and a brave man.
Brave not just with words or with stances — even in a dark time when that kind of bravery can usually be scared — or bought — off.
Charged — as you heard in the story from ABC News last Friday — with assessing the relative legality of the various nightmares in the Pandora’s box that is the Orwell-worthy euphemism “Enhanced Interrogation,” Mr. Levin decided that the simplest, and the most honest, way to evaluate them… was to have them enacted upon himself.
Daniel Levin took himself to a military base and let himself be water-boarded…
Daniel Levin should have a statue in his honor in Washington right now.
Instead, he was forced out as Acting Assistant Attorney General, nearly three years ago, because he had the guts to do what George Bush couldn’t do in a million years: actually put himself at risk for the sake of his country, for the sake of what is right.
[H/t: Asad Raza]