- Where do American religious leaders stand on torture?
Their deafening silence evokes memories of the unconscionable behavior
of German church leaders in the 1930s and early 1940s.
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- Despite the hate whipped up by administration propagandists
against those it brands "terrorists," most Americans agree that
torture should not be permitted. Few seem aware, though, that although
President George W. Bush says he is against torture, he has openly declared
that our military and other interrogators may engage in torture "consistent
with military necessity."
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- For far too long, we have been acting like "obedient
Germans." Shall we continue to avert our eyes even as our mainstream
media begin to expose the "routine" torture conducted by U.S.
forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo?
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- Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman John Warner took
a strong rhetorical stand against torture early last year after seeing
the photos from Abu Ghraib. Then he succumbed to strong political pressure
to postpone Senate hearings on the subject until after the November 2004
election. Those of us who live in Virginia might probe our consciences
on this. Shall we citizens of the once-proud Old Dominion simply acquiesce
while Sen. Warner shirks his constitutional duty?
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- We have come a long way since Virginia patriot Patrick
Henry loudly insisted that the rack and the screw were barbaric practices
that must be left behind in the Old World, or we are "lost and undone."
Can Americans from other states consult their own consciences with respect
to what justice may require of them in denouncing torture as passionately
as the patriots who founded our nation?
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- On Sept. 24, The New York Times ran a detailed report
regarding the kinds of "routine" torture that U.S. servicemen
and women have been ordered to carry out. This week's Time also has an
article on the use of torture by U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Guantanamo.
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- Those two articles are based on a new report from Human
Rights Watch, a report that relies heavily on the testimony of a West Point
graduate, an Army captain who has had the courage to speak out. A Pentagon
spokesman has dismissed the report as "another predictable report
by an organization trying to advance an agenda through the use of distortion
and errors of fact." Judge for yourselves; the report can be found
here. Grim but required reading.
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- Inhuman
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- History, even recent history, demonstrates once again
that absolute power corrupts absolutely. See if you can guess the author
of the following:
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- "In this land that has inherited through our forebears
the noblest understandings of the rule of law, our government has deliberately
chosen the way of barbarism.
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- "There is a price to be paid for the right to be
called a civilized nation. That price can be paid in only one currency
the currency of human rights. When this currency is devalued, a nation
chooses the company of the world's dictatorships and banana republics.
I indict this government for the crime of taking us into that shady fellowship.
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- "The rule of law says that cruel and inhuman punishment
is beneath the dignity of a civilized state. But to prisoners we say, 'We
will hold you where no one can hear your screams.' When I used the word
'barbarism,' this is what I meant. The entire policy stands condemned by
the methods used to pursue it.
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- "We send a message to the jailers, interrogators,
and those who make such practices possible and permissible: 'Power is a
fleeting thing. One day your souls will be required of you.'"
- -- Bishop Peter Storey, Central Methodist Mission, Johannesburg,
June 1981
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- I asked a Muslim friend recently what the Koran says
about torture. After consulting an imam, she reported that the Koran does
not address the subject because the Koran deals only "with human behavior."
Do not we of the Judeo-Christian tradition also reject torture as inhuman
and never morally permissible?
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- The various rationalizations for torture do not bear
close scrutiny. Intelligence specialists concede that the information acquired
by torture cannot be considered reliable. Our own troops are brutalized
when they follow orders to brutalize. And they are exposed to much greater
risk when captured. Our country becomes a pariah among nations. Above all,
torture is simply wrong. It falls into the same category of evil as slavery
and rape. Torture is inhuman and immoral, whether or not our bishops and
rabbis can summon the courage to name it so.
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- It Is Up to Us
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- By keeping their tongue-tied heads way down, our religious
leaders have forfeited the moral authority with which they otherwise could
speak. They end up playing the role of Hitler's Reichsbishops, who supported
or at least acquiesced in the policies and methods of the Third Reich.
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- Many American men and women - Jews, Christians, Muslims
of the Abrahamic tradition - have learned not to depend on clergy leaders
who bless the Empire. The inescapable conclusion is, as popular theologian
Annie Dillard reminds us, "There is only us; there never has been
any other."
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- The question is this: Are we are up to the challenge
of confronting the evil of torture, or shall we prove Patrick Henry right?
Is our country about to be "lost and undone?"
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- Ray McGovern is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity and lives in Virginia.
- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10410.htm
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