I'm somewhat confused by a poll I just ran across.
I certainly can understand the notion that people of faith might separate their faith from their belief about whether torture is a good idea or not (though I don't think that it is a good idea myself), so I might have not been surprised to see a lack of correlation between religion and support or non-support for torture, but a new Pew poll out today suggests that especially among evangelicals and to a lesser degree among adherents of a number of other religions, support for torture is actually higher than it is among people who don't go to church.
According to the linked poll, 54% of people who go to church at least once per week believe that torture of prisoners is sometimes or often justified, versus 42% of non-church goers.
That statistic is somewhat misleading or at least overly broad though, as the survey finds that members of 'mainline' Protestant churches-- such as Lutherans, Presbyterians and Episcopals-- were actually more strongly opposed to torture than non-church goers (30% of mainline protestants answering that torture is never acceptable, versus 25% of the non-churchgoers) and Catholics were not that far behind non-churchgoers. The number that really sticks out is that only one in eight evangelicals believes the same.
Now, I'm not a member of an evangelical church and the President of the National Association of Evangelicals, Leith Anderson, had no comment on the poll. I'd be interested in knowing how they justify this though. I do go to church every week, and I've read the Bible extensively and I'm not sure what in scripture justifies torturing prisoners. I was reading the sermon on the mount the other day and I'm sure there was nothing in there about waterboarding. Maybe I will read it again tonight just to be sure.
If anyone who is a member of an evangelical denomination would like to comment on this and what in your doctrine makes members of your church more likely to support torture I'd love to hear it. I've always thought that Christians were more likely to uphold the teachings of Christ-- starting with compassion, even towards an enemy once he has been rendered powerless. But maybe I'm getting the wrong idea about that, this is more like the Christian values as practiced during the Inquisition.
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 06, 2009
Senate Republicans try to make President keep Americans in the dark about torture memos. He should call their bluff.
According to Scott Horton at the Daily Beast, Senate Republicans have threatened to 'go nuclear' and block some of President Obama's judicial appointments in order to prevent him from releasing Bush administration memos involving torture.
Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.
It is disappointing to me that the administration appears to be knuckling under to this particular blackmail. It is important that we as Americans know what exactly happened (or for that matter didn't happen) over the past several years.
Go ahead and release the memos. If Republicans want to be identified as willing to block the President's judicial counsels in order to stick up for the Bush policy of torturing prisoners then let them so be identified.
I'm not arguing that the position of legal counsel isn't important, either in the Deparments of State or of Justice. But how much we find out about what happened is critical if we want to decide publically and in a national debate about whether we are ever going to allow this stuff to happen again.
Besides, I've heard righty after righty after righty claim that Americans will support them and that nothing that bad was done to people who (they claim) were all known terrorists. OK, let's accept that at face value. If that is true, then why are the Senate Republicans going to the wall to try and prevent these memos from being released into the public domain? If there is really nothing more there beyond what is already known and if the public supports them on it, then wouldn't they welcome the disclosure? But obviously there is more there, and they are willing to as an entire Senate conference lay it on the line just to make sure that we never find out what has been done 'in our name.'
I say, call their bluff. Let the public decide who is right about this.
Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.
It is disappointing to me that the administration appears to be knuckling under to this particular blackmail. It is important that we as Americans know what exactly happened (or for that matter didn't happen) over the past several years.
Go ahead and release the memos. If Republicans want to be identified as willing to block the President's judicial counsels in order to stick up for the Bush policy of torturing prisoners then let them so be identified.
I'm not arguing that the position of legal counsel isn't important, either in the Deparments of State or of Justice. But how much we find out about what happened is critical if we want to decide publically and in a national debate about whether we are ever going to allow this stuff to happen again.
Besides, I've heard righty after righty after righty claim that Americans will support them and that nothing that bad was done to people who (they claim) were all known terrorists. OK, let's accept that at face value. If that is true, then why are the Senate Republicans going to the wall to try and prevent these memos from being released into the public domain? If there is really nothing more there beyond what is already known and if the public supports them on it, then wouldn't they welcome the disclosure? But obviously there is more there, and they are willing to as an entire Senate conference lay it on the line just to make sure that we never find out what has been done 'in our name.'
I say, call their bluff. Let the public decide who is right about this.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Building containing Dick Cheney's office is on fire
The Eisenhower Executive Building, which houses the Vice President's office is on fire. Hopefully no one is injured, but here are some explanations for how it might have happened:
1. With the clock running down on the Bush administration, they were going to build a bonfire to burn all those documents on Cheney's energy committee hearings, but with his penchant for secrecy he suggested that they hold it indoors.
2. After all those years of the CIA trying to get him with those exploding cigars, Fidel Castro finally got his revenge. He sent a box of them to Cheney, and Cheney, not knowing who they were from, lit one.
3. We now know where the 'secret, undisclosed underground location' is, and it's a hell of a long way down under the Eisenhower building, and quite hot down there.
4. Speaking of the devil, Dick Cheney forgot to extinguish himself this morning when he entered his office.
5. The ghost of Ike is sending a message that he doesn't like what Cheney and his crew have done to the military, the country and the Republican party.
6. With Congress withholding funding for Iraq, the Bush administration took out one of those risky subprime mortgages on the building and now they are also trying to collect the insurance money.
7. It is sort of cramped in there, so it was inevitable that they'd waterboard somebody too close to an electrical outlet.
8. We will find out who started the fire, because Scooter Libby will tell Bob Novak.
9. They just made the building non-smoking, so it started with Cheney sneaking a smoke in the bathroom. He accidentally caught the toilet paper on fire.
10. They experienced a short circuit in an electrical cattle prod during an interrogation session. After it melted one set of testicles, the fire really took off.
11. Dick Cheney is known to sometimes be a volcanic hothead. So this morning his temper got the better of him and the fire started in the room he was in due to spontaneous combustion.
12. The Vice President's answer to global warming: burn documents that were left in the office by the previous occupant.
13. On April 10, 2003 Dick Cheney said that the rioters who were burning all those government buildings in Baghdad were just 'blowing off steam.' So with tension rising in the Vice President's office, maybe he thought it was time to do the same.
14. With Congress passing the new energy bill, oilman Dick Cheney is doing his own research to try and develop a cleaner burning fuel.
15. While duck hunting in his office, Dick Cheney misfired with his shotgun and shot an electrical outlet.
16. The Vice President started a couch on fire with his rhetoric.
17. Congress and the Justice Department are looking into those destroyed CIA tapes. So they need to destroy the tapes of them destroying the tapes.
18. The Vice President had a meeting this morning with some space aliens from Altair-7, and the staff forgot to fireproof the room first.
19. Realizing that he was going to be leaving the office next year, Cheney wanted to make it clear which furniture was his. So remembering his old cattle ranching days he heated up the branding iron and tried to brand the sofa.
20. Never an advocate for civil liberties, Cheney was amusing himself by burning a copy of the Constitution.
1. With the clock running down on the Bush administration, they were going to build a bonfire to burn all those documents on Cheney's energy committee hearings, but with his penchant for secrecy he suggested that they hold it indoors.
2. After all those years of the CIA trying to get him with those exploding cigars, Fidel Castro finally got his revenge. He sent a box of them to Cheney, and Cheney, not knowing who they were from, lit one.
3. We now know where the 'secret, undisclosed underground location' is, and it's a hell of a long way down under the Eisenhower building, and quite hot down there.
4. Speaking of the devil, Dick Cheney forgot to extinguish himself this morning when he entered his office.
5. The ghost of Ike is sending a message that he doesn't like what Cheney and his crew have done to the military, the country and the Republican party.
6. With Congress withholding funding for Iraq, the Bush administration took out one of those risky subprime mortgages on the building and now they are also trying to collect the insurance money.
7. It is sort of cramped in there, so it was inevitable that they'd waterboard somebody too close to an electrical outlet.
8. We will find out who started the fire, because Scooter Libby will tell Bob Novak.
9. They just made the building non-smoking, so it started with Cheney sneaking a smoke in the bathroom. He accidentally caught the toilet paper on fire.
10. They experienced a short circuit in an electrical cattle prod during an interrogation session. After it melted one set of testicles, the fire really took off.
11. Dick Cheney is known to sometimes be a volcanic hothead. So this morning his temper got the better of him and the fire started in the room he was in due to spontaneous combustion.
12. The Vice President's answer to global warming: burn documents that were left in the office by the previous occupant.
13. On April 10, 2003 Dick Cheney said that the rioters who were burning all those government buildings in Baghdad were just 'blowing off steam.' So with tension rising in the Vice President's office, maybe he thought it was time to do the same.
14. With Congress passing the new energy bill, oilman Dick Cheney is doing his own research to try and develop a cleaner burning fuel.
15. While duck hunting in his office, Dick Cheney misfired with his shotgun and shot an electrical outlet.
16. The Vice President started a couch on fire with his rhetoric.
17. Congress and the Justice Department are looking into those destroyed CIA tapes. So they need to destroy the tapes of them destroying the tapes.
18. The Vice President had a meeting this morning with some space aliens from Altair-7, and the staff forgot to fireproof the room first.
19. Realizing that he was going to be leaving the office next year, Cheney wanted to make it clear which furniture was his. So remembering his old cattle ranching days he heated up the branding iron and tried to brand the sofa.
20. Never an advocate for civil liberties, Cheney was amusing himself by burning a copy of the Constitution.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Godspeed that we rescue the prisoners
Today U.S. forces were searching for three people, either three U.S. troops or two U.S. troops and an Iraqi interpreter, who were captured in an attack on a patrol consisting of seven Americans and the interpreter. The rest of the patrol was killed in the ambush.
I think that all Americans are hopeful at this point that the search will be successful and the missing personnel will be recovered.
If that does not happen, past episodes of this sort of thing do not point to a promising outcome.
Early in the war, six Americans including Jessica Lynch were taken prisoner. Lynch was seperated from the others and according to author Rick Bragg, who studied the pattern of her injuries, was sexually assaulted while under sedation in the hospital. Lynch was subsequently rescued by American soldiers. The other five (four men and a woman) were beaten bloody and forced to make anti-American statements on Iraqi television. Later they were joined by two more POW's, whose Apache helicopter was shot down over central Iraq.
And those eight, as horribly as they were treated, were still treated in a way that looks good compared to subsequent American prisoners in Iraq-- likely because as prisoners of Saddam Hussein's army their captors had at least some semblance of the rule of law in how they treated prisoners.
In April 2004, the first capture by insurgents occured. They captured Sgt. Keith Maupin, of Batavia, Ohio and another soldier (the other soldier was apparently shot to death shortly after capture-- either he resisted or the insurgents decided they'd have an easier time escaping with one prisoner than with two.) Maupin's execution was purported to be shown on Al Jazeera, but the U.S. army has called into question the authenticity of the video and still lists Maupin as missing.
On October 23, 2006 US Army soldier Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie was kidnapped by insurgents. It is no secret that muslim extremists hold a special level of hatred for muslims who fit into western society, and it seems certain that as a member of the U.S. army, Taayie was specifically targetted. His fate is unknown, but it is likely quite gruesome.
On June 16, 2006 in Yusufiyah, Iraq, three U.S. soldiers were ambushed. One of the three, David Babineau was killed in the ambush (though apparently shot at close range, possibly after he was unable to defend himself.) Babineau was the lucky one, however, as the bodies of PFC Kristian Menchaca and PFC Thomas Tucker were found three days later; According to the Iraqi defense Ministry they had been 'killed in a barbaric way,' and 'slaughtered' by being tortured to death. Their bodies had been so mutilated by the torture that DNA analysis was needed to confirm their identities.
And that is just the U.S. soldiers who have been captured in Iraq, not the scores of contractors, civilian workers or Iraqis working with the U.S. who have met similar fates.
Again, let's all pray that the latest prisoner hunt by the army is successful and that they are rescued before anything like this happens.
Let's also remember three other things:
1. The muslim extremists in Iraq have no compunction about doing anything to anybody. In other words, Saddam Hussein may be gone, but there is nothing he did that isn't still being done in Iraq.
2. Conservatives will argue that this justifies our use of torture against prisoners. That is false. First, those prisoners by and large have not been convicted of anything and some of them may well be innocent. And second, even if they are guilty, it is hard to see the logic in arguing that because we are fighting a viscious enemy we must do the same as they do. Certainly the highest levels of the U.S. government knew very well what was happening in German occupied Europe in WWII, but they never suggested that we put captured Nazi soldiers in gas chambers.
3. We've been fighting in Iraq for years, and things are not getting better. The sooner we leave, the sooner we won't have to read stories like this.
I think that all Americans are hopeful at this point that the search will be successful and the missing personnel will be recovered.
If that does not happen, past episodes of this sort of thing do not point to a promising outcome.
Early in the war, six Americans including Jessica Lynch were taken prisoner. Lynch was seperated from the others and according to author Rick Bragg, who studied the pattern of her injuries, was sexually assaulted while under sedation in the hospital. Lynch was subsequently rescued by American soldiers. The other five (four men and a woman) were beaten bloody and forced to make anti-American statements on Iraqi television. Later they were joined by two more POW's, whose Apache helicopter was shot down over central Iraq.
And those eight, as horribly as they were treated, were still treated in a way that looks good compared to subsequent American prisoners in Iraq-- likely because as prisoners of Saddam Hussein's army their captors had at least some semblance of the rule of law in how they treated prisoners.
In April 2004, the first capture by insurgents occured. They captured Sgt. Keith Maupin, of Batavia, Ohio and another soldier (the other soldier was apparently shot to death shortly after capture-- either he resisted or the insurgents decided they'd have an easier time escaping with one prisoner than with two.) Maupin's execution was purported to be shown on Al Jazeera, but the U.S. army has called into question the authenticity of the video and still lists Maupin as missing.
On October 23, 2006 US Army soldier Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie was kidnapped by insurgents. It is no secret that muslim extremists hold a special level of hatred for muslims who fit into western society, and it seems certain that as a member of the U.S. army, Taayie was specifically targetted. His fate is unknown, but it is likely quite gruesome.
On June 16, 2006 in Yusufiyah, Iraq, three U.S. soldiers were ambushed. One of the three, David Babineau was killed in the ambush (though apparently shot at close range, possibly after he was unable to defend himself.) Babineau was the lucky one, however, as the bodies of PFC Kristian Menchaca and PFC Thomas Tucker were found three days later; According to the Iraqi defense Ministry they had been 'killed in a barbaric way,' and 'slaughtered' by being tortured to death. Their bodies had been so mutilated by the torture that DNA analysis was needed to confirm their identities.
And that is just the U.S. soldiers who have been captured in Iraq, not the scores of contractors, civilian workers or Iraqis working with the U.S. who have met similar fates.
Again, let's all pray that the latest prisoner hunt by the army is successful and that they are rescued before anything like this happens.
Let's also remember three other things:
1. The muslim extremists in Iraq have no compunction about doing anything to anybody. In other words, Saddam Hussein may be gone, but there is nothing he did that isn't still being done in Iraq.
2. Conservatives will argue that this justifies our use of torture against prisoners. That is false. First, those prisoners by and large have not been convicted of anything and some of them may well be innocent. And second, even if they are guilty, it is hard to see the logic in arguing that because we are fighting a viscious enemy we must do the same as they do. Certainly the highest levels of the U.S. government knew very well what was happening in German occupied Europe in WWII, but they never suggested that we put captured Nazi soldiers in gas chambers.
3. We've been fighting in Iraq for years, and things are not getting better. The sooner we leave, the sooner we won't have to read stories like this.
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