January 18, 2006: Looking for information on Ray Nagin’s Chocolate Factory? Follow this link!
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“It’s time to be honest about doing terrible things …” so writes Charles Krauthammer in his article “The Truth about Torture.” I agree, especially in light of John McCain’s politically motivated, loop-hole-filled amendment to extend portions of the U.S. Bill of Rights to unlawful combatants.
Total War
War is indeed a terrible thing and as displayed through a number of selected historical citations and quotes, Krauthammer argues the moral merits and reasons for taking prisoners of war – and the exceptions accepted by most civilized societies.
This to me is a good argument gone astray. War is an obscenity – making any tool of this beast equally obscene. The best we can hope for regardless of methods is that one prosecute it as swiftly, powerfully and terribly as possible to break the will of one’s opponents with as little judgement to both sides as possible. Done effectively once, the threat of overwhelming force should be enough to to compel new opponents into compromise and/or to collaborate a workable solution to avoid the storm altogether.
One need only compare the avoidance of a nuclear attack by all potential confligrants during the Cold War against the politically induced unfinished-war ongoing in Korea.
Torture as a Tool
First let me say that I’m all for prosecuting the idiots perpetrating the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Such acts only strengthen the resolve of one’s enemies and provide nothing useful to the captors. Second, though there is a huge difference between ‘beating the snot’ out of a detainee with a rubber truncheon and keeping them awake for 48 hours through bright lights and rock music – though I suspect neither is very effective in harvesting information from death-cult Islamofascists.
Like war, the idea behind any torture is to break the will of one’s opponents – either to give up valuable data – or to give-up taking arms against someone else. It is with deterrence in mind that I find myself miffed at McCain’s myopic act. Removing the torture option from the table – or at least the threat of it – encourages opponents of Iraqi freedom to continue acting as illegal combatants now that the most significant peril of such an act has been removed.
Worse, it now puts legal combatants in a position of either slaying on site someone otherwise spared for data – or taking on the expense of slowly brain-washing the insurgent, boiling the frog into a ‘dependent state’ with “three meals a day, superior medical care, and provision to pray five times a day.” In the case of the latter, I propose throwing in select TV shows to insure said terrorist are psychologically tortured into “entitlement thinking.”
Trust me, once we start exporting a few “Ophra-ized” insurgents back to their countries, their leadeship will wish we had hung the criminals as one usually does all spies in a time of war. But I digress …
“Who would Jesus Torture?”
Though I’ve already offered enough food for thought, I figure why not roll out a banquet? To wit, I’d like to bring into the picture a meme I’ve recently heard from “progressive Christians” (progressive being synonymous with liberal in this context). “Who would Jesus torture?” is asked, often followed by trying to paint a disagreeing party into admitting that they see Jesus teachings as irrelevant to the ‘real world’ the same way one asks “so, do you still beat your wife?”
However, instead of bantering about faulty bumper-sticker theology, I would suggest a more reasonable and productive approach would be to discuss whether or not torture is a legitimate tool of war – and if so to what degree? Put in terms of a progressive pundit, if I believe in ‘total war’ then don’t I also condone ‘total torture?’
To answer that question, the Christian needs to ask themselves, what does the entire Bible say about war? After all, Jesus did not “come to abolish the Law or the Prophets” rather He came “to fulfill them.” Considering the timeframe of this statement, I have to conclude this includes many of the examples in the Old Testament to God’s people in the art of total war – coupled with Paul’s recognition in the New Testament of the authority of Earthly government to prosecute war totally.
Sword of the Lord
Figuring some of you are seeing red by now, allow me temper this a bit so we don’t debate the wrong extremes – I personally believe ‘Total War’ should never be taken on lightly – and only as a last resort. As Christians, it should not be taken on by any one individual, but only by the mechanism God ordained to maintain the rule of law, government. As the late Ray Stedman writes in his article “Ten Propositions Concerning War:”
“The Church does not bear a sword (her weapons are mighty spiritual weapons). The State, on the other hand, does bear a sword.”
Considering the history of prolonged pain and misery brought about by partially prosecuted wars, and considering the Biblical warnings against leaving one’s enemies the ability to regroup – the real question isn’t “who would Jesus torture” but whether or not war is an option to believers.
Put another way, either as Christians we buy into the whole “Sword of the Lord” concept, condoning government to practice “total war” – or we are compelled to practice complete pacifism. Trying to have it both ways, as politicians and Christian intellectuals are pone to do, cruelly costs everyone more in lives and suffering both in the short and long term.
Of course that’s just my puny perspective. I’m hoping raging debate will ensue. And just in case it doesn’t, I’ve listed over at blogs4God what other Christian bloggers have to say on the topic of torture. Believe it or not – there is no one consensus but instead many interesting arguments that should be entertained.
Filed under: Conservatives, Justice, Liberals, War - Islamofascism
Regarding torture.
So Saddam Hussein says he was tortured while in US custody. (world’s tiniest violins playing) Can’t wait to hear the Democrats take his side against America. THAT should be good stuff.
Trackback by Conservababes: Right from New Fallujah — 12.21.05 @ 11:55 am
who would Jesus torture?
if being tortured by seven devils for eternity in hell counts, then the list is long.
Comment by tim everitt — 12.21.05 @ 12:04 pm
When the left comes at you with things like “Who would Jesus bomb” and “who would Jesus torture?” Just respond this way: “that’s an interesting question. And here’s another–Who would Jesus abort?”
Comment by Michele — 12.21.05 @ 2:14 pm
I’m a Christian, and I absolutely believe we should use torture to get information from terrorists. These people want to kill me, my family, my friends, and everyone in America. They deserve no rights, no respect, nothing. Period.
Comment by Nick J. — 12.21.05 @ 2:56 pm
Mustard & Sarin gas, and Anthrax have been apart of ‘Total War’ for decades. Rape and pillaging have been for centuries, no millennia. Should we embrace those as well simply because the are fact of war? I should hope not.
I am concerned because you seem to be (correct me if I am wrong) justifying torture when even the ends fail to do it.
Comment by BH — 12.21.05 @ 3:13 pm
who would Jesus torture? and who would he kill?
I love that question. Because it is so entirely unconsonant with 1st century Judea ruled by the Romans. It is such a stunning historical anachronism. It could only be asked by people who have no understanding of the time period in which Jesus lived.
Comment by alcibiades — 12.21.05 @ 3:36 pm
BH, I’ll take your ‘Mustard & Sarin gas, and Anthrax‘ and raise you a Little Boy and a Fat Man with the question as to whether it was more merciful to drop these and end the war in Japan immediately, or endure a long and costly campaign to take the island?
And please, no revisionist, monday-morning quarterback history that ignores the impact the battles such as Okinawa and Iwo Jima had on the actual decision process - not unless you’re willing to argue with my 80-year-old dad who was a SeaBee who was trained by survivors of said battles (to clear beaches of obstructions for Marines) and was on a boat doing circles off the coast of Japan in case the conventional solution was played out (can you say 80% attrition rate?-0).
Comment by Mean Dean — 12.21.05 @ 5:13 pm
First…
When did Congress declare the Iraq Campaign as a “war?” Give me the date.
Second…
Any treatment you approve of the United States using on foreigners, you must also approve of being used by foreign governments on our own citizens overseas, whether they be military or otherwise.
If you don’t, then you’re a hypocrite at BEST, a dangerously jingoistic fool at worst.
–Cobra
Comment by Cobra — 12.21.05 @ 7:41 pm
LaShawn gets my goat when she tosses the “t” word (torture) out there.
The libs have elasticized “the health of the mother” term in permitting abortion to cover hangnails and missing a movie date.
“Torture” has undergone the same transmogrification to the point that if the questioner’s cologne causes the detainee to sneeze….!
Torture is extreme, damaging pain (pulling fingernails) and maiming. It is not “water-boarding” or false “execution” or making a prisoner listen to Teddy Kennedy speeches for 48 hours straight.
Some people are quite resistant to torture. Others can be forced to babble stream of conscience information by the simple threat of torture. I am intimately familiar with all of the histories of those tortured in the “Hanoi Hilton” and those histories belie the common admonition that “torture does not work.” It did not work on John McCain, Paul Galante, Ed Davis and numbers of others who suffered mutilation and maiming. It worked like a charm on many multiples of other prisoners.
Most people can be “persuaded” to cooperate by the belief that torture will follow.
There is a method of creating great pain without damage that is quite effective and to which the layperson can relate. It involves shocking the root nerves of a tooth. This is commonly used in Egypt, Jordon and other cooperating “rendition” countries. When the person knows the pain can be intensified in frequency and duration, he usually acts to avoid it. This type of treatment is at least borderline torture, but it is a long way from wearing panties of your head or having someone insult your religion.
As for who Jesus would torture, I suspect that his incarnate goodness was a constant form of agony to the unrepentant, the evil and those engaged in diabolism. It was not torture.
I wish that LaShawn would define the term “torture” when she throws it out for discussion.
This is Mean Dean’s post, Helio.
- Admin
Comment by Heliotrope — 12.21.05 @ 8:24 pm
Cobra writes: “Any treatment you approve of the United States using on foreigners, you must also approve of being used by foreign governments on our own citizens overseas, whether they be military or otherwise.”
Cobra, you are far too sheltered in the bubble of your strobe-lit imagination. Here are just a few of the places you would find (as an American) being a political prisoner of the government “uncomfortable”: South Africa, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Macedonia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, Mexico, China, Indonesia, Sudan, Iran, and scores of smaller, more perverse countries.
There are substantially more countries where the “civil” factions engage in unspeakable horrors.
I suggest you go to the list of countries that the US Department of State has posted for travel advisories or prohibited for travel. These are countries that not only do not accept diplomatic intervention, but will subject American citizens caught up in their judicial systems to unimaginable horrors. Try systematic rape, for example.
It is a big world out there and it is full of places you can not talk or grin your way back into safety.
To assume that these pockets of hate take their cues from the standards set by the United States does not rise even to the level of naivety.
And, God help you, if you think the UN will stand beside you……
Comment by Heliotrope — 12.21.05 @ 8:58 pm
Heliotrope writes:
>>>”Here are just a few of the places you would find (as an American) being a political prisoner of the government “uncomfortableâ€: South Africa, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Macedonia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, Mexico, China, Indonesia, Sudan, Iran, and scores of smaller, more perverse countries.”
What makes America better than those said countries is that we don’t stoop to the same level of behavior. Obviously, you don’t agree.
–Cobra
Comment by Cobra — 12.21.05 @ 9:37 pm
I love Romans 13, especially when my clients whine about being victimized by the police. Only when they accept responsibility and the chain of authority established by God do they straighten up.
Comment by Kevin Mark Smith — 12.21.05 @ 10:13 pm
“I wish that LaShawn would define the term “torture†when she throws it out for discussion.”
Heliotrope, you’ve stumbled into one of my main points. If I define for my enemy my limitations, then they will fight me up to those limits.
If I throw out a big, scary, ambigious question mark, then I gain several advantages in the tug of war of wills (no pun intended).
So no — being the author of the above post — I won’t define torture, not for you, and certainly not for our enemies.
Comment by Mean Dean — 12.21.05 @ 10:32 pm
Does the Bible Prohibit Torture?
Reading this post at LaShawn Barber’s corner about the Christian response to torture made me think: Is torture prohibited anywhere in the Bible? Barber argues that the state should be allowed to torture sometimes as part of a total war…
Trackback by Pete The Elder — 12.21.05 @ 11:00 pm
Mean Dean: First, my apology for not paying closer attention and noting that you authored the blog.
Perhaps you have not understood my remarks.
Torture has had a tight definition for a very long time. In the Hanoi Hilton, men had bones broken, limbs twisted in ways that tore their muscles and ligaments, wounds not only left untreated but caused to fester. These acts fit the definition of traditional, classic torture.
There are many things that can be done that will yield more reliable results than maiming and damaging, physical pain.
Our problem is that we have allowed the discussion of torture to expand its meaning.
Your point is that if the enemy knows that the water-boarding will end short of drowning, that he will last it out and it will be ineffective. I can assure you that the actuality of the experience, coupled with the fear that the guys carrying out the water-boarding might be crazy shakes the most hardened case right down to his toe-nails.
There is a vast array of techniques ranging from chemical injections to psychologically induced Stockholm syndrome that work very effectively. However, many people are including these and lesser activities under their definition of torture.
If you do not have a tight definition of torture, then you open yourself to constant redefinition and an endless argument of words.
On the other hand, if you mean to say that you will permit torture and all the maniacal permutations that can occur to the perverted mind, then I would suggest that you stand very much alone.
Comment by Heliotrope — 12.21.05 @ 11:27 pm
Heliotrope, no need to apologize - and as always excellent points, however I would re-emphasize that while not tightly defining torture allows politicians and intellectuals to redefine the term …
… such ambiguity also wreaks havoc in the mind of one’s enemies who are playing the game with deadlier weapons than words.
Comment by Mean Dean — 12.21.05 @ 11:36 pm
Dean,
even the nukes served had a purpose the saved more lives than it destroyed. But you admit the torture is not “very effective in harvesting information from death-cult Islamofascists” so what would be the point? You mentioned as deterrent but how can it be deterrent when the acts take place in secrete, and detainees are held for YEARS. The only effect is humiliation and demoralization, and I can’t see that as having a military value.
That their is NO morality in doing something so heinous for no good reason.
Comment by BH — 12.22.05 @ 12:56 am
And apparently I can’t proof read at 1am gnite
Comment by BH — 12.22.05 @ 12:58 am
BH: “The only effect is humiliation and demoralization, and I can’t see that as having a military value.”
As I say in the post, it has significant military value if I can “boil the frog into a ‘dependent state’ …” through entitlements.
BTW, I think it was the Clinton administration who started the whole thing of outsourcing terrorist not so much for torture - but because it looked better domestically without having to remove any options from the international table.
Comment by Mean Dean — 12.22.05 @ 1:12 am
The “unfinished business” in Korea? Well, if MacArthur was allowed to do his job, it certainly would be finished, and possibly the awakening giant of Red China would not be there either.
This nation has tragically stopped short, and outright helped those who would later become our enemies, far too often.
I mentioned one of the two best U.S. Generals in the 20th century, and now I will mention the other one.
If Patton was allowed to continue, it is possible we would not have has the dark cloud of the Cold War to contend with. And, in the name of fighting the cold war, we did strengthen those who we now are our enemies, only to become the War on Terror.
If I didn’t know better, I would thing that the U.S. government had to keep an enemy going from that time until now just to keep the people frightened and to advance the cause of the Servile State. To wit, witness now how any semblance of advancing the conservative agenda has been totally subsumed by this “War on Terror”.
Comment by Mark Slater — 12.22.05 @ 11:11 pm
#
[quote]
First…
When did Congress declare the Iraq Campaign as a “war?†Give me the date.
Second…
Any treatment you approve of the United States using on foreigners, you must also approve of being used by foreign governments on our own citizens overseas, whether they be military or otherwise.
If you don’t, then you’re a hypocrite at BEST, a dangerously jingoistic fool at worst.
–Cobra
Comment by Cobra — 12.21.05 @ 7:41 pm [/quote]
In case you missed it, terrorists are capturing our soldiers and cutting their heads off on video with rusty saws. So there is no need to “approve” of anything. It would be hard to imagine us doing worse.
Comment by WWJT — 12.23.05 @ 12:22 pm
WWJT writes:
>>>”In case you missed it, terrorists are capturing our soldiers and cutting their heads off on video with rusty saws.”
Name ONE American Soldier who had his or her head cut off by “terrorists” on video.
–Cobra
Comment by Cobra — 12.23.05 @ 6:06 pm
Oh, sorry Cobra, how about the CIVILIANS!
For the most part, Coalition soldiers go down fighting, and don’t get captured alive.
Soldiers captured by the TERRORISTS (no quotes, thanks, they use terror to cow their opponents and enemies) have been shot on video, for example Keith Maupin. The terrorists have claimed to have done so, however, but the Pentagon has denied it, and no video of a US soldier being beheaded has been released. But it isn’t for a lack of trying.
Some civilians, who should be off limits but are favored targets of the Islamic Terrorists
Kim Sun-il
Nick Berg
Daniel Pearl
Margaret Hassan
Akihiko Saito
Kenneth Bigley
Eugene Armstrong
Radim Sadiq
Jack Hensley
Here’s an Iraqi soldier beheaded on video
Major Hussein Shunnum
Comment by SCSIwuzzy — 12.23.05 @ 6:47 pm
SCSIwuzzy,
That list of people represents whom? By whose authority are they in Iraq? Are they invited guests? Legal immigrants?
All sorts of heinous things happen in America. Watch Fox News for more than twenty minutes and I’m sure you’ll run across a story about some suburban teenager being snatched, or some blond coed being killed. The fact that bad people do bad things is not a justification for the American government to devolve into similar behavior.
Moreover, if Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson unit had been treated in captivity the way Iraqi detainees were treated at Abu Ghraib, you right wingers would’ve been howling for nuclear strikes.
–Cobra
Comment by Cobra — 12.23.05 @ 10:36 pm
Yes Cobra, it’s all America’s fault, America is evil, America mean. How could we have missed such obvious points?
Cobra, normally I suggest to people that they get involved in the system to affect changes from within. In your case however, observing your hatred of everything American - I’d wonder if someplace like France wouldn’t be more to your likings?
Comment by Mean Dean — 12.24.05 @ 9:29 am
Mean Dean writes:
>>>”Cobra, normally I suggest to people that they get involved in the system to affect changes from within. In your case however, observing your hatred of everything American - I’d wonder if someplace like France wouldn’t be more to your likings?”
So now you it’s “America, love it or leave it?” Is that all the right has left to say?
You seem to want to justify torture. I’m against torture, no matter which party participates in it. For that, you call me a “hater.”
Who has the more rational position in this discussion?
–Cobra
Comment by Cobra — 12.24.05 @ 10:11 pm
No Cobra, your “art” enough for one to label you a hater.
By whose authority are the Jordanian, Syrian, Saudi and other terrorists in Iraq?
Do you feel the current civilian govt in Iraq is legitimate?
Comment by SCSIwuzzy — 12.25.05 @ 1:10 am
SCSIwuzzy,
The Jordanian, Syrian, and Saudi terrorists didn’t seem to be a problem when Saddam Hussein was still in charge. Hmmm…
As far as my art is concerned, I’m actually kind of glad right wingers have a problem with it. It lets me know that I’m getting my points across.
–Cobra
Comment by Cobra — 12.25.05 @ 4:42 pm
Cobra: The Jordanian, Syrian, and Saudi terrorists didn’t seem to be a problem when Saddam Hussein was still in charge. Hmmm…
I’ve been to Jordan, talked to people extensively about some terrorists from their country. If you’re ever in the same position, I’d suggest not being so empirical applying the views of a few terrorists to the majority of hard-working family folks there.
That is if you want to sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Comment by Mean Dean — 12.26.05 @ 9:15 am
MeanDean,
>>>”I’ve been to Jordan, talked to people extensively about some terrorists from their country. If you’re ever in the same position, I’d suggest not being so empirical applying the views of a few terrorists to the majority of hard-working family folks there.”
Then you would know that to even MODERATE, PEACEFUL Muslims, sexually humiliating naked Muslim men and photographing them is a blasphemous act. You’re going to sit here and tell me that the Jordanians you spoke to support what Americans did at Abu Ghraib?
That is is YOU want to sound like YOU know what YOU’RE talking about.
–Cobra
Comment by Cobra — 12.26.05 @ 1:52 pm