An excerpt from a report on an interview with former VP, Cheney:
“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry,” Cheney said in the interview published Wednesday.
"These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek," he said.
Yikes, these are some scary comments. How can a person not be more concerned about values like freedom, and human rights than these quotes show? In my mind the only way you can possibly justify this type of behavior is if you are confident that every person you are interrogating is in fact guilty. In my opinion, there is no way that is possible. We have been torturing innocent people, and the fact is you could make a good case we shouldn't even be torturing the guilty ones!
I personally am willing to sacrifice a bit of safety in order to stand up for American values. If you think about it, we actually do that every day with domestic policy. I have lived in mainland China and can tell you that I have never felt safer than when I was there. However, freedom and human rights are greatly sacrificed there to achieve this safety. They execute people for things we would not. They do not allow any type of firearms at all. Often times you are guilty until proven innocent.
2000 or so people died in the twin towers attack, and that is terrible. But how many people have died due to gunshots? How many people have died because convicted felons are put back on the street? How many people have died because we presume innocence? My guess is it is a much bigger number than 2000 - and yet we are generally ok with it because it preserves our values of freedom and human rights.
We sacrifice our local safety daily so we can experience these liberties. Why should this change when we look at foreign policy? I don't think it should. Treat all people as human, with respect, and value them. This is how we will set an example for the world. If it makes us a little less safe, so be it.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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7 comments:
Here's the kicker. Treating detainees as if they were humans does not, in fact, make us less safe. Torturing detainees is what makes us less safe.
Last spring the Pentagon released a report on what motivated foreign fighters to come to Iraq. Often, the answer was an image from Abu Ghraib. Obama's public call to stop torturing people has already lead to debate within extremist Islamic circles about ceasefires.
Torture is immoral, ineffective, and counterproductive. I agree with you that there are times when the US ought to sacrifice some safety for our freedom and values. Fortunately, ending torture involves no such trade-offs.
I'm guessing you are not a fan of the television show "24". http://www.fox.com/24/
I would like to debate you fiercely on the necessity of not tying our Military's hands. Although, as a Christian, I do need to contemplate and ponder the words of a Christian brother. Is dunking people in the water (forcefully, not like baptism) to get information that could save American (and foreign nationals and international visitors) lives from terrorist attack? I'm thinking about that. Do I feel safer when I know that the Government takes a strong stance against terrorism and lets everyone know that we are not going to allow it...you better believe it. The kind of talk that is "scary" to me is that we show preference to the enemy. Do we just "turn the other cheek?"
When the Israelites said they wanted a king, they had a few good ones and a bunch of flawed at best, evil at worst, kings. The US will never have a Theocracy, so we will have to be under authority of flawed at best, evil at worst, government officials. We are going to have to trust God with our lives, and no matter who is in charge the Lord is our strength.
I've been in situations before where I have dogmatically stood on an issue without examining all the facts, and trusting other people to research for me. I would encourage whoever reads your blog to examine facts and also examine the nature of Christ. I need to do more soul searching before I agree with your premise. My gut is not with you yet.
Is dunking people in the water (forcefully, not like baptism) to get information that could save American (and foreign nationals and international visitors) lives from terrorist attack? I'm thinking about that.
First, waterboarding bears no resemblance to forcefully dunking someone in the water. The person is being drowned. If it is done "correctly," they are let up before they die, but it is drowning.
Second, you assume two things that are dubious. In fiction, like the show 24, torture produces accurate information. In reality, more often than not it produces inaccurate information. We reverse engineered our torture program from our SERE training (which trained our military to respond to being captured behind enemy lines). The USSR (and the countries they trained like Vietnam) used torture to gain confessions; it did not matter if they got accurate confessions or false confessions. So we ended up designing our torture program based on a program that had no interest in gaining accurate information. It should be no surprise that torturing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed yielded no actionable intelligence.
Your other problematic assumption is something that KC addressed in his post. You assume that the person we are torturing actually has "information that could save American...lives from terrorist attack." As KC said, we know that we have already tortured innocent people (sometimes on the basis of false accusations made under torture) and until we become omniscient, we know that there will be times in the future when we detain other innocents. If we torture anyone, we will be doing so with the knowledge that we will torture someone who is innocent or who has no information.
The fact that torture is both ineffective and counterproductive are reasons enough to end its practice. There is no reason to be concerned that forbidding torture ties the hands of the military since torture does the military no good in the first place.
For Christians, there is also the issue of intentionally harming someone made in God's image who is no immediate threat and completely under the control of our government. Even 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed bears the image of God. Sure, he's guilty of many heinous crimes, but he bears God's image and our government intentionally inflected severe pain on him while he was completely powerless. Of anyone in the entire world, those who worship Christ, who was crucified, ought to aggressively oppose torture in any form and in any place. Even if it is the US government doing the torturing.
Yes, please don't take what I say as absolute truth. I don't even do that! If there is anything I can guarantee, it is that some of my thinking is flawed. This is just what I think.
First, I would say that the value or purpose of 'safety' is not a theme of the Bible. If anything, Jesus comes and makes people's lives less safe. The question should not be 'do I feel safer?', but instead 'what is right?'.
If you believe it is 'right' to torture certain people in the hopes that it will protect other people, then I get that (but don't agree with it). However, if you believe that, it leads me to the question, 'why don't we use it for domestic issues also?'. The only answer I can come up with for that is that we value our lives over theirs ... and I'm not comfortable with that answer.
KC - Sorry man. I think I get shocked when people I have known for a long time have a different world view from what I assume they did. So I really wish I hadn't said anything. I hate angry blogging, so I wish I just had left it up to someone who is good at arguing these issues...like my husband. (ha) Seriously man, you do your thing and I'll keep my mouth shut. ;0) Lisa
Hey Lisa,
No worries. Many very smart and good people agree with you, and in my opinion you shouldn't be ashamed if that's the way you feel. My intent is not to argue about anything with this blog as much as it is just to give me a place to write the things that come in my head. Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I question your morality or goodness or anything of the sort. I'm very sorry if it came across that way! I just think it's good to take time to think about these things.
I actually appreciate the comments!
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