There has been a lot of news and discussion about torture in the news lately. President Obama released some torture memos recently that shocked many people. You can read them here.
Pretty grim stuff, suits in Washington providing legal cover for torturing prisoners held in in secret prisons overseas. Basically they were saying that we just declare that the prisoners are not subject to the protections of the Geneva Convention. Also, we don’t call it torture, call it “Enhanced interrogation techniques.” That doesn’t sound so bad does it. What the memos also say is that Americans taken prisoner in those same areas would not be subject to the same protections. Hey, that’s not the suits problem though, they aren’t going anywhere near the war zones.
The American torture method of choice is waterboarding. I’ve had people tell me that it isn’t that big a deal. You can read about it here. It sounds absolutely awful to me. The CIA was using a proven torture technique, endorsed by the Spainish Inquisition and the Khmer Rouge among others.
Now, a big question is, “Does it work?” That is where things get a little fuzzy. You Google that, and there is all sorts of information out there. The politicians and political appointees during the Bush Administration seem to insist that it does work and that all sorts of attacks were prevented by its use. The experts in intelligence are much less definite about it. This seems to be a fairly balanced article about it. The consensus is that waterboarding makes people talk. They will tell you anything, even if they don’t know anything about the subject.
It turns out that the use of official torture methods was more widespread than what the Bush Administration claimed publicly. For example Abu Zubaydah, who the Administration claimed was waterboarded for only 35 seconds total, was actually waterboarded 83 times. Also, he did not give up any more information than he did before the torture started. I’m not trying to generate sympathy for these thugs. They deserve far more punishment than what we can give to them, but torture?
Now on top of this comes a report from the Pew Research Center on the religious dimensions of the torture debate. They surveyed a cross sample of the American population on attitudes toward torture with startling results.
It looks like the more religious a person is, the more likely they are to support the use of torture. People who are unaffiiliated with a religion, are the least likely to support torture. I find this incredible. Where have we Christians gone wrong? Is Christianity just a matter of going to Church, tithing, and reading your Bible? Is there anything else to it?
Why are we even having a debate on whether torture is wrong? I always thought that the United States of America was special. We had a higher standard than other countries. We stood for what’s right. Are we special? What do you think?
This just makes me sick to think people have no problem with someone being tortured. Yogi this shouldn’t surprise you that so many christians have no problem with it. My husband says he hears people at his church talk how they have no problem with torturing prisioners. President Obama needs to go after the crazy idiots who started this and proscute them. The same people who have no problem with torture would be screaming bloody murder if their sons or daughters were victim to it. Sorry I will get off my soapbox.
I’m against using torture, on behalf of humanity there has to be a better way of getting information to save lives. How can we justify using these heinous methods, we should be setting a standard, not falling into that same bottomless pit. I don’t want to sound sanctimonious here. Maybe we ought to ask a person who has been directly affected and who has been victimized; families of those who have lost loved ones by terrible and violent acts in this world. I wonder what they would say? There would probably be a mixed bag of answers.
Yogi, this is some great analysis and you pose some great questions. I discussed many of these same questions with the students in my Ethics class on Thursday night. I pointed out the importance of approaching life with a consistent ethical foundation. If you’re pro-life, then that means you’re pro-life where babies are concerned and where adults are concerned, too. Frankly, I think Christians in this country have fogotten our ancestral heritage of being tortured for our beliefs. Put in that context, I’m not sure they’d be so quick to advocate its use.
I agree, I always felt we were better than this, that the ends don’t justify the means, even if torture did work which it doesn’t.
I left my church when I found they did not believe in the teachings of Jesus. I find that Unitarian Universalists do adhere to these teachings so thats where you’ll find me.
It’s disturbing, to be sure. That anger takes on a life of its own and changes the standards by which we just what is normal and reasonable is horrifying.
I’m completely disgusted with the politicians that condoned this. America should have higher moral standards than terrorists, and there’s no excuse for torture.
Besides, as you point out, the information that comes from torture is suspect, at the very least.