Who Would Jesus Torture?

I try. I really do. Swear to God. Yet I can't get over the fact that the President of the United States, a man who professes to be a good Christian and follower of the teachings of Christ, has become the first leader of the greatest democracy, ever, to explicitly approve the use of torture against our enemies.

Never mind that many of these "enemies" are innocent and probably the victims of mistaken identity, or that they were scooped up simply because we we're offering a bounty for terrorists and rival tribe leaders turned them in to make a few bucks. Never mind that a man being tortured will say anything to make it stop. Never mind that Jesus himself was tortured. Never mind that we are supposed to be the good guys, and that when we torture a man we create not only one enemy, but dozens of others--including his sons, brothers, daughters, wife, cousins, fellow tribal members and countrymen.

Let me just repeat that one fact: WE TORTURE PEOPLE.

Sometimes I want to just want to bang my head against a wall and scream. How could this happen? What have we become? Why don't the talking bobble-heads on the evening news begin each broadcast by saying: "In Iraq today things continue to go to hell and, by the way, WE TORTURE PEOPLE!"

In a column today in the Washington Post, two retired military men attempt to explain this awful practice as a by-product of 9/11. The fear generated by that attack, they say, led to panic, which then led to the belief that in order to save lives, torture was sometimes necessary.

These two men are adamantly opposed to torture, but I am skeptical of their reasoning. The commander-in-draft-dodging-chief and his loathsome, sick, awful vice-president (who avoided Viet Nam thanks to five deferments, because he had "other" priorities) were not under attack when they approved of this practice. No one was shooting at them. No one was lobbing bombs at them. They sat in comfortable offices, protected by armed government agents, and scribbled their authorizations for torture onto harmless pieces of paper. For this, and this alone, they should be impeached, convicted and sentenced to life in a Super Max, or Guatanomo--(which would be the most appropriate outcome)

The republican presidential candidates had another "debate" the other day, and all of them, except for McCain--who actually was tortured--came out forthrightedly for this tactic. Once again, they raised the "dirty bomb" scenario, in which we've just captured a terrorist, who has just planted a nuclear bomb in a major city, and the only way to prevent a horrible attack is to torture him into revealing it's location. How stupid and absurd is this? Let me give just a few examples:

He is caught right after planting the bomb. Why? Was he being followed? Did the authorities already know about him? If so, why wasn't he nabbed before planting the bomb? Or did he get pulled over in a routine traffic stop and, during the usual license-registration-insurance routine just happen to casually admit that he's planted a nuclear bomb in downtown, but the only way he'll tell you it's location is if you torture him? Or, will one of his terrorist pals call 911, after a change of heart, to snitch him off?

None of that will happen, of course, because the terrorist planting this device will be a suicide bomber. He will get to his "ground zero" and trigger it, because it will get him up to heaven, where he'll have access to all those virgins he's been lusting after. And he'll trigger it when he gets to the site, or on the way, or whenever he feels threatened. No one will ever have the opportunity to torture anyone into revealing the location of a bomb, because that person will just be atoms on the breeze.

BTW, did I happen to mention that WE TORTURE PEOPLE?