Reading notes

Bob Herbert writes powerfully, as usual, on the wrongness of present U.S. torture policy —

Extraordinary rendition is the name that’s been given to the policy of seizing individuals without even the semblance of due process and sending them off to be interrogated by regimes known to practice torture. In terms of bad behavior, it stands side by side with contract killings.

Our henchmen in places like Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan and Jordan are torturing terror suspects at the behest of a nation — the United States — that just went through a national election in which the issue of moral values was supposed to have been decisive. How in the world did we become a country in which gays’ getting married is considered an abomination, but torture is O.K.? …

Any government that commits, condones, promotes or fosters torture is a malignant force in the world. And those who refuse to raise their voices against something as clearly evil as torture are enablers, if not collaborators.

If refusing to raise voices against torture is enabling evil — and it is — then what is actively endorsing those in power who are ordering the kidnapping and torture? That is what the U.S. Christian Right is doing in effect if not in intent, and we will be held accountable.

(I keep saying “we” in a decreasingly heartfelt intent toward unity and solidarity, Christian Right, Left, and Middle. I’m less and less sure that’s wise. I sense there’s a point at which my disgust will overcome my intent and my use of first-person pronouns will fall away, though I doubt my accountability will. [two days later: I’m reminded that disgust is mostly not helpful. It’s a self-administered poison just as unforgiveness is. Working on cleanup …])

There is a widespread but mistaken notion in the U.S. that everybody seized by the government in its so-called war on terror is in fact somehow connected to terrorist activity. That is just wildly wrong. …

If seizure can so easily encompass anybody, it can too easily encompass you or me.

Jettisoning the rule of law to permit such acts of evil as kidnapping and torture is not a defensible policy for a civilized nation. It’s wrong. And nothing good can come from it.

As Pastordan reminds —

Christ died by torture in order to overcome sin and death. So why would Christians endorse exactly those things? …

God himself took human form and suffered torture and death. Therefore, we ought to look at the prisoners being tortured and see not just human faces, but the face of God.

(Boldface added.)

[via lively discussion initiated by Armando]

2005-02-25 update:
[promoted to its own entry]