Now, I know that a lot of us evangelicals voted for George W. Bush on the grounds of "moral values." That story has made all the news. Okay.
That’s why I am troubled. I wonder why I have not heard more evangelical Christians upset about the way the Bush Administration reinterpreted the rules for the use of torture. The Bush team departed radically from convention when it loosened long-standing rules governing the interrogation of prisoners. This change is something that’s been known since last June when the Justice Department memo from Attorney General designate Alberto Gonzales was sent to Bush describing aspects of the Geneva protocols against torture as "quaint" and "obsolete." The man that Bush has nominated as the top prosecutor of American law played a large role in orchestrating, if not actually drafting, a change in our country’s stand on torture!
But we Christians are not saying a thing during Gonzales’ confirmation hearings about this. And the Democrats are being creampuffs on Gonzales as well; in the words of Time Magazine, “Gonzales is certain to be confirmed as John Ashcroft's replacement, especially because Democrats are wary of opposing a Hispanic when their hold on that constituency was weakened in the last election.”
You’ve got to be kidding! You won’t call a guy out for putting the American stamp “OKAY” on torture because he’s Hispanic? You’ll let politics get in the way of truth? (Why am I surprised?)
The hearings did offer a few interesting tid-bits, however:
Senator Patrick Leahy got Gonzales to admit that he had consulted with the Justice Department's office of legal counsel about the torture memo. There were meetings in his White House office. Techniques like waterboarding—when they strap down a prisoner and make him believe he's going to drown—“may” have been discussed. Gonzales admitted that he did “generally support” the thrust of the Justice Department's decision to severely constrict the definition of torture. (In other words, since they wanted to torture people, they simply redefined 'torture' more narrowly, so that they could say, “We didn’t 'torture' anybody.”)
Senator Herbert Kohl got Gonzales to admit that the Bush Administration policy on torture had "migrated" to the CIA and Pentagon and from there to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. (In other words, the atrocities at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib were at least an indirect result of the Bush Administration’s tinkering with the definition of torture).
Senator Richard Durbin asked a question that should have Christians who hold to “moral values” infuriated with the Bush Administration. Durbin asked whether or not, even after all the pressure to change our stand on torture back toward the Geneva conventions, United States personnel today could legally engage in torture under “any circumstances.” Gonzales answered, "I don't believe so, but I'd want to get back to you on that and make sure I don't provide a misleading answer."
What?! You’ve got to be kidding me! Why is the nominee for Attorney General waffling on this? Is it because he is still trying to redefine our nation’s definition of torture?
Don’t get me wrong; I think that in the war against terrorism, the use of aggressive, nonviolent interrogation techniques is often appropriate to get the information we desperately need to battle the evil of terrorism. But that is a far cry from what the Bush Justice Department has been advocating. Time reports, “In the summer of 2002, the CIA and Gonzales asked the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel for an opinion on the definition of illegal interrogation methods. On Aug. 1, 2002, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee sent Gonzales the following guidance: the President is within his legal limits to permit his surrogates to inflict ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading’ treatment on prisoners without violating strictures against torture. For an act of abuse to be torture, the interrogator must be inflicting pain ‘equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.’ The definition of illegal torture had been significantly narrowed, which meant that anything short of that was O.K.”
Where’s the moral outrage from Christians over that?
4 comments:
va•ga•ry, noun (plural: "-ries"): Etymology: probably from Latin vagari to wander, from vagus wandering
: an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notionI guess my very detailed blog above is filled with erratic and extravagant notions--especially the quote from Time at the end, and all the quotes from Alberto Gonzales (vagaries...NOT!) :-)
Waterboarding was not the extent of the allowed torture--again that quote from TIME: "Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee sent Gonzales the following guidance: the President is within his legal limits to permit his surrogates to inflict ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading’ treatment on prisoners without violating strictures against torture. For an act of abuse to be torture, the interrogator must be inflicting pain ‘equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death."Is that extravagant, or is it accurate? It’s being reported by Time that “almost 20 inmate deaths are being investigated.”
A friend of mine told me not to write too much on a blog—we are not required to create a dissertation covering all our bases on a web log. People who are interested in learning more about what happened can read the major news magazines on it:
Time The Torture Files: The Gonzales hearings reopened painful questions: How did abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere happen? And what standards are we now following?
Newsweek Torture's Path: The paper trail is long, and it isn't pretty. But it's sure to produce some tough Senate questions for Alberto GonzalesThe only reason that the conservatives are saying “the Geneva Convention doesn't apply” is because of the Gonzales-led reinterpretation of the law on torture. That’s the very point! This cannot be shrugged off, but must be investigated. Gonzales is right that al-Qaeda terrorists without a recognized state should be detained in a manner different from and stricter than the standard Geneva Convention procedures, but no matter what “kind of war” we are fighting, it does not excuse inhumane treatment of inmates (the Christian worldview speaks directly against this kind of thing). Many of us who are not fully on-baord with Bush do not buy the ‘vagary’ from Bush that the war on terrorism gives the President all kinds of lee-way to generate new ways for our noble state to conduct itself in time of war.
Byron, please fight fair. I never said that I advocated “asking them nicely.” In fact, I said, “the use of aggressive, nonviolent interrogation techniques is often appropriate.”
And...
Why haven’t you heard the news of these atrocities?
Oh yea, you listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannitty.
[ That’s probably not playing fair, is it? Sorry, couldn't help myself! :-) ]
Byron,
Thanks for taking my “cheap shots” about definitions and conservative radio in fun. You’re a good guy.
I think we can agree that "We are all living in a time unlike we've ever lived in before, and we're facing situations we've never faced."
But I think that second-guessing is an important part of a time like this. When we act out of fear (and a time like this has many acting out of fear), we make bad decisions all the time. We must go back, re-evaluate our actions (second-guess), so that those mistakes are not repeated.
Also, my point on this thread is more germane to the first quote from Time you cut and pasted: “Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed off on 16 additional measures for use at Gitmo, including stress positions, such as standing for long periods; isolation for up to a month; hooding during transportation and questioning; removal of clothing; and "exploiting individual phobias, e.g., dogs." And also the last statement from Time in my original blog entry, which said that at the request of Alberto Gonzales (then the Counsel to the President) for guidance, the Bush Justice Department said that “the President is within his legal limits to permit his surrogates to inflict ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading’ treatment on prisoners without violating strictures against torture…equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.”
You are looking for some clear evidence of condoning torture, by redefining "torture," THERE YOU HAVE IT! The Bush Administration was purposely seeking to redefine things that are CLEARLY torture as not torture. This calls into question the morality of Rumsfeld, Bybee, and Gonzales. It seems so apparent to me. I just don’t get why it isn’t to you.
This is the heart of my call for Christian moral outrage—Christians are good on the moral outrage about the liberal Democrats’ stands on abortion and gay marriage and stem cell research (as we should be), but when it comes to being consistent when it deals with the lack of moral integrity among the conservative Republicans, well, that’s another story.
What should we allow?Scare him with a barking dog? NODog Torture 1Dog Torture 2Waterboard him? I DON’T KNOW
Subject him to standing up for a long time? YES
Exhausted hooded inmatePlay loud music? YES
Mess up his sense of day and night? YES
Apply even a moderate amount of pain (granting limits)? YES
Remove his FURNITURE? YES
Let’s add the Bush Justice Department list:Inflicting “cruel, inhuman or degrading’ treatment?” NOinhuman degrading treatmentInfliciting pain inequivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death”? NOphysical serious injury
Lyricano brings up a point that's been battering around in my head for a few months...
When the current war in Iraq was first started, I preached a message about what a "Just War" is, and I ended with the question, "Can 'Just War Theory' work in the 21st Century?"My answer then was, basically, that even though Just War is only an "ideal," it is still the best criteria for judging whether or not to go to war.
I'm not so sure anymore. I'm wondering how a theory developed by Augustine in a time very different from our own, with weaponry and military tactics very different from our own, can be applied in a day of mass-murdering terrorists and pre-emptive wars.
I'm going to re-visit this in a few days with a new blog entry. Any ideas?
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