The waterboarding debate continues. Well it should. But I was struck by three paragraphs at the end of an article about the current debate over President Bush's nominee for attorney general.
Even Democrats like Bill Clinton and scourges of torture like Sen. John McCain say it is acceptable to torture someone in a "ticking bomb" scenario. Real life doesn't produce the kind of a-nuke-is-about-to-go-off scenarios featured on the television drama "24." The closest we are likely to get is the capture of high-level al-Qaida operatives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with knowledge of ongoing plots. Should we have tortured KSM? No. But we waterboarded him and that reportedly helped roll up al-Qaida terrorists around the world.Circumstances matter. If we were waterboarding political dissidents, Sen. Whitehouse would be right to compare us to Saddam Hussein. If interrogators were waterboarding KSM every morning for their own amusement, that would shock the conscience. But not many consciences will be shocked at subjecting him to 90 seconds of uncontrollable panic to get information that might save lives.
If the Senate disagrees, it should put itself clearly on record forbidding waterboarding. Otherwise, it should confirm Mukasey as the careful legal mind he has shown himself to be throughout his career and during this controversy.
From a political perspective, this makes sense. Protecting the nation, the greater good, is a moral imperative. From a purely human perspective, it makes sense. We want to be protected and we want the bad guys to suffer.
But from a Jesus perspective? I don't think so. I don't know that the radical Jesus life he required allows such a perspective. I am not approaching this as someone devoid of a background in political philosophy or moral reasoning or ethics. I understand all of those perspectives. I understand and appreciate Augustine's justification for such things in City of God . I also don't approach this as someone who believes that listening to Jesus means stripping away 2,000 years of intellectual tradition. I understand the nuances of faith and reason - I think.
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Thanks for the thought-provoking post and comments here.
Donny --
Nice to know that George Washington, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, and William Wallace weren't Christians.
and Christians INVENTED waterboarding in point of fact.
Guys, guys, we're all paying attention to those who make arguments that have nothing of Christ in them. We love arguing with those guys. Reality is - we can't change the mind of those who will not reason because it is too fearful to do so.
We cannot change the minds of alcoholics who refuse to see the harm their thinking does and we cannot change the minds of drug addicts who believe their habit doesn't iinvolve anyone else. We cannot change the mind of anyone who must be right at the expense of reality. Just can't argue someone into reason unless they are 1.willing to listen and 2. willing to see themselves as possibly being wrong.
So - we're stuck in a country where about 20% of the voting public lives in such a place - whether they are on the right or on the left.
To be nice to them is what we think we need to do to be "Christian". To attack them certainly only adds fuel to a fire. Speaking truth without bringing attention to such people seems the reasonable alternative.
That will require more than gut reactions - it will require a bit on research at times.
I'm as guilty as anyone in reacting with my opinion, but am beginning to see the error and inherent flaw in such reactions.
Remember, Aaron's son's? They basically played a "I gotcha game" in trying to fascinate the people with their fires and sacrifices. Believe they were consumed by their own fires. Just thinking about it.
Thinker:
I found reading the on-line book The Authoritarians by Bob Altmeyer a big help in understanding certain types of people a big help. And my response has been not to respond or even read certain posts. It hits too many painful buttons for me.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
I also found Father Leo Booth's When God Becomes a Drug to be VERY helpful. Once I started looking at such behavior as part of an addiction and not from God, things made a great deal more sense to me.
Abstaining from the use of torture is not just about morality, it is pragmatic. We don't torture because if we do it to them, they'll do it to us. WWII did not feature the use of chemical agents nerve and mustard gases; because the experiences of all combatants in WWI. In Iraq and Afghanistan the U.S. is fighting enemies who are not military equals, who do not have the capability to capture and keep large numbers of prisoners. If Al Qaeda or the Shi'ite militias were capturing thousands of American troops and water boarding them, we would be forced to rethink our policies.
It may never happen that we fight an opponent who can match us in size and might; but if that day comes, American soldiers can forget about the Geneva convention. Our former president said it doesn't apply if we say it doesn't apply. We can expect our sons and grandsons and daughters and granddaughters to be tortured without mercy.
It is possible that torturing prisoners had produced useful intelligence. I am in no position to say it has or it hasn't; but at what price?
What about the innocent men who have been tortured? Hundreds of men were sent to Guantanamo. They were all subjected a whole host of coercive interrogation techniques. A handful of these hundred have been charged with anything. Most were just men who believed in what their leaders told them. I'm not saying they were right, only that they probably weren't terrorists. If they were, prove it. Do it in open court so we can see and hear the evidence. It won't happen because in most cases, there is no evidence. Just suspicion. The United States has held some of these men for seven years. Imagine being imprisoned for seven years because some army private in a far away land thought you might be involved in something? Imagine being tortured for joining the army? That's all most of the men in Guantanamo did. They joined their version of the army.
People all over America belong to militias, paramilitary groups, self defense organizations. The Minutemen who patrol the U.S. border with Mexico aren't uniformed members of the U.S. military. Does that make them illegal enemy combatants? Does their lack of official standing make it acceptable for a foreign government to imprison them without charges and torture them?
For as long as we espouse a policy that allows for the deliberate, willful, brutal treatment of helpless men and women, the United States can not claim the moral high ground. We deposed Saddam Hussein, and when no WMDs were discovered, the president said well, he was a bad guy. He tortured people. Does that mean Iran can invade the U.S. and execute President Bush? The U.S. tortured people. Their leader should be tried and executed for war crimes. I don't think many people, even those of us who didn't vote for the man, think that's acceptable.
If you want to get Biblical, 'do unto others applies'. 'Turn the other cheek'. I don't think Jesus said, turn the other cheek unless the guy is an illegal enemy combatant. You are what you do. If you deliberately hurt people, then that is who and what you are.
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