Waterboarding is already against the law and the judicial system allows juries to consider the circumstances in its verdict.
As a follower of Jesus I hate waterboarding.
As an American I hate the undermining of our constitution and other laws.
I disagree that the waterboarding debate should continue. This, like comprehensive immigration reform, is an easy one. Nothing is bothering me more about our future than the fact that we can’t make obvious choices these days.

Two words: slippery slope

Doug – ditto.
Not sure how to put this – but two other issues bother me about waterboarding and utilizing other forms of torture. (1) I’m not sure if the totally hypothetical American lives saved are worth the REAL AMerican souls damaged when we utlize and defend torture. Yes, I do believe that these actions do damage our souls. (2) While I do believe that there is more shades of gray (and reds, blue, yellow and purple) to any given situation, there are still things that NO MATTER WHAT are wrong. Abusing a child for instance. In this case, torture is wrong. Period. And waterboarding IS torture.
As Chris Rock said about hitting women. “Of course there can be a reason for hitting a woman. There can be a reason for kicking an old man down the stairs. Just don’t do it.”

As I’ve said (and explained in rather bald detail from my own intellectual musings on the subject here on Bnet), I don’t think it’s moral or legal from a governmental or religious perspective.
Just practically speaking — no ethics involved whatsoever — if you were tortured, wouldn’t you say ANYTHING to make it stop? Even if it wasn’t true?

I am disturbed by the argument, “If the Senate disagrees, it should put itself clearly on record forbidding waterboarding”. Essentially, what people who use this argument are saying (and I have heard it from a large number of people) is that general laws that use principals for determining the legality of an action no long can be used. Taken to the extreme (as is being done in this case) criminals could say, well there is a law against stealing, but shoplifting isn’t specifically mentioned in the law, so the writers of the law must not have considered shoplifting stealing. Lowry, and others, that say that Congress had the option of saying waterboarding was torture but didn’t pass the bill, so it must not be torture, ignore the fact that waterboarding is torture in a large number of US and international laws through comprehensive definitions. What supporters of waterboarding want, is to require that we ignore the comprehensive definitions, that have a wide understanding around the world and throughout US case law, and instead legislate individual torture methods. And my assumption is that if congress specifically said waterboarding was illegal, a variation using a different liquid or a different angle or a different way of securing the prisoner would be considered a different method. This is exactly why the bill that was mentioned above was voted down. Comprehensive definitions are the only way of legislating torture and many other crimes. Torture was, is, and will continue to be a war crime and should be treated as such.

If everyone lived as Christ and His Apostles lived, there would be no terrorists to wonder about toturing in the first place. Of course, it is the Muslim terorrists that continue torture and murder on a daily basis that are being sought out.
I have asked this question a dozen times or more here at Beliefnet: Gather together tens of thousands of Progressive Christians and GO TO WHERE TERRORISTS LIVE and protest against their use of violence and torture and murder.
That will end the use of waterboarding no matter who wants to do it.
Because as we all know, Christians that hold to the fundamentals of the faith, do not believe in nor practice violence.

>>>”If everyone lived as Christ and His Apostles lived, there would be no terrorists to wonder about toturing in the first place.” Donny
Actually, Donny, both Christ and a good number of his Apostles and early followers were tortured and put to death precisely for living the way they did. From a historical perspective, purity of life does not grant immunity to opposition or torture.

Donny. Read John 18:10.
And it just disappoints me to hear that after all the times you’ve told people to go to where the terrorists live not one has followed your instruction. Did they even have the courtesy to prove scripturally why they haven’t?

The issue still isn’t what the terrorists do. It is what we do. Of course there is a relationship between the two. However, part of what makes us human is our ability to make a choice. We have an option to respond with torture or respond with another option. I will always say a torture response is an immoral and inappropriate response. Historically, at least in since WWII, world opinion has been on my side. Part of my responsibility as a Christian, I believe, it to work to keep it on my side. However, if world opinion changes, I will still work to see that any government that I support does not torture. This is not a liberal argument.
Donny, what I don’t understand about your arguments is that you want Islamic terrorists to change before we change. As a Christian I believe that if I expect someone to live in a particular way I should live in that way both as an example to them and as an illustration that the way that I think people should live is a viable method. What I think is happening with the current administration view is that we are illustrating that war, torture and courts and national or international law is an acceptable.

Doug,
Jesus scolded Peter and healed the mobster that came to kill Him.
///
This, from Adam S., needs to stop:
“. . . what I don’t understand about your arguments is that you want Islamic terrorists to change before we change.”
NEWSFLASH: American soldiers are NOT Christian missionaries. No matter what Bin Laden, or the American press, Hugo Chavez and the BBC says. The Crusades were started by Muslims taking Jerusalem by WAR, and as even you should be able to see, THEY are still fighting it. Even though they still have much of the land they stole. (By force of war.)
The ONLY way that ISLAMIC TERRORISM is going to stop is if “we” Christians (you (?) and I) preach the Gospel and live it TO these Muslims all over the world, for the Gospel that is awesome.
(After watching my 22-year old son lowered, in his casket, into a grave death just isn’t that scary to me anymore. There are real reasons why I oppose Progressives and Liberals.)
Torture? As you have correctly identified historically accurate, Christians GET tortured. BUT NOTICE they are always UNARMED.
Countries, have a right to protect themselves. Remember that in Islam, there is no seperation of Mosque and State. They are one and the same. And if a country IS NOT Islamic, it better prepare for war, subjugation or restricted trade.
But, with history as a guide, Muslims are no worse than Romans to Christians. And Muslims don’t rule the entire world yet.
Now . . . “do the math.”

I see this discussion and the other article re: why men don’t go to church .. some sort of drivel about a “girly god.” (i thought God was gender neutral, or gender inclusive.)
I now have a clear understanding of why waterboarding continues after it was first used in the Spanish Inquisition and most recently before this administration by the Khmer Rouge.
It is getting harder and harder to persuade my grandchildren that any organized religion is worth his time and trouble .. and a “girly god” is not his problem.
The ratcheting up of inhumane behavior is. The killing of innocents is. (And if one is keeping score, the killing of innocents by Christians continues to tally higher than killing by any other religious group.)
Now i will sign off the computer, drink a hot cup of coffee and mourn the loss of our collective souls.

I really am trying to understand Donny’s argument but I don’t get it.
You are suggesting that we should go and work in Muslim countries. Fine, I agree with that I support missionaries and non-profits that work in those areas. That doesn’t really apply in this context because we are talking about US policy in the the US and by US military.
You suggest that torture is only torture if the person being tortured does not have a weapon. That is just not true, or else we would not have the Geneva Convention and US Military Justice laws. But if you want to counter and say that independent terrorists, without state sponsorship don’t qualify for protection from torture through these laws I will strongly disagree, but I will understand the reasoning.
I see that you think that countries have a right to protect themselves. I agree with that. I am not a pacifist. But that argument is only valid here if you think that torture is a method of protection. We can disagree on this point, but there are a large number of researchers both inside and outside the military and law enforcement arenas that say that torture does not increase security because it does not give valid information. The FBI and CIA independently researched torture post WWII and the FBI says torture does not work. They have a comprehensive interrogation program that can be used on US citizens and believe that they get better results than the CIA that has chosen to use torture because they are not bound by the rules against torture of US citizens. There are also past CIA officials that have said that their methods that include torture do not work. But no one inside the current administration can say this and keep their job.
I agree with your last point. Christians, Muslims and most other religious groups have used torture and mayhem at some point in their history and Christians are most likely the winner in the use of torture. However, it is not learning from history to keep making the same mistakes.
What I still don’t understand from your posts is why you think that torture, by itself, not the broader war, is a legitimate and useful tool to fight terrorism. What I sense is that you think that since our guys are getting tortured it is alright for us to torture as well. If that is not the case please give an actual argument for torture.

Donny,
I don’t know what point you think you are establishing with your outraged references to the First Crusade and the Muslim capture of Jerusalem. The First Crusade was more than 400 years after the fall of Jerusalem in 638, and in any event possession by military conquest (Israelites vs Canaanites; Americans vs Mexicans; Americans vs Spain; France vs England;Rome vs Carthage; France vs Germany; etc etc) is so common as to hardly merit a mention. That’s the main way the political map changes. It may not be laudable, but that’s how it is.
The The Islamic world is scientifically, technologically and culturally backward. Many Muslims are humiliated by this, and resentful, and angry, but their backwardness should also inform us that any concern that Muslims will “rule the world” is completely misplaced. They are not rich, and they are not smart. The per capita income in Saudi Arabia is just $14,000 in spite of all the oil wealth. The literacy rate in the Arab world is 63%, just slightly above sub-Saharan Africa. The Islamic lands are stagnant regions that create virtually nothing in the science or the arts. To inflate the significance these benighted peoples– unemployed, unproductive, angry and resentful– into some sort of ‘Clash of Civilizations’ with “subjugation” in the balance is just an error. The high tide of Islam is about 1000 years in the past. That’s just a fact.
Your view seems to be that torturing Muslims is okay because they are particularly bad people, and self-defense demands extreme measures. Is that it?

Go, therefore, and make disciples, teaching, baptizing, torturing…

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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