Gonzales supports Roe V. Wade...

[JGrubbs]

Originally posted by fromtheright:
PA Jim,

Exactly what would you have the chief law enforcement officer in the country do about abortion?

I wonder if the Christians in Hitler's day would have asked the same thing about the "chief law enforcement officer" with the Nazi's in Germany.

Would those in the German government be required to go along with Hitler's plan to extermenate the Jews simply because they had to follow the government's orders?

Many Christians would have used Romans 13 to say that they had to follow Hilter regardless of what he was doing.

We need government officials who will stand up and say that abortion is murder and they will not remain silent till the American Holocaust is ended!!

 

[Pennsylvania Jim]

True, but sadly, many see the MURDER of BABIES as little more than a political football. 4000 per day, and counting, while our "pro-life" politicians sit silently and DO NOTHING.

I wonder if people would be so willing to drink up the "there's nothing we can do about it" lie if it was their living child that was next on the list.

 

[Pennsylvania Jim]

Originally posted by JGrubbs:
I wonder if the Christians in Hitler's day would have asked the same thing about the "chief law enforcement officer" with the Nazi's in Germany.

Would those in the German government be required to go along with Hitler's plan to extermenate the Jews simply because they had to follow the government's orders?

...

Yes. The results are in the history books, as will be the results of the apathy and acceptance of American Christians.

 

[Pastor Larry]

Yes. Rape for instance? And doesn't your statement violate your own constitution?

No, rape is not acceptable. That is a personal violation of a very intimate nature. I don't think it is possible to draw up a list of valid techniques. In general terms, irreparable bodily harm and loss of life are the limits. Noise, solitude, psychological, etc. are all valid.

Our constitution exists for those who live under it. Our constitution guarantees nothing to people who do not live under it, so no, it isn't a violation of our constitution.

And I take it from your statement that you are perfectly happy for the same courtesy to be extended to US service personnel when they are taken prisoner as a 'valid interrogation technique'?

It already happens. That is a non argument. Laws are good only for people who live under them. When you are fighting law breakers, such as the insurgents, laws mean nothing to them.

Would you be ok with a US servicewoman (or man) being raped to extract 'necessary information'?

Already answered that.

 

[Matt Black]

Torture is not just evil, bad and wrong. It is plain stupid and unreliable. I believe that people will confess to anything under torture just to get it to stop.There is no good argument for it, either ethical, moral or practical.

I personally find it unacceptable in any situation and fail to see how it can possibly be used by any country which claims to be decent, democratic and free, whatever the supposed benefits. I am even more disturbed, therefore, to find it supported by a Christian...

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

[Matt Black]

From the New York Times' article "We Are All Torturers Now":

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Take, for example, this account, offered by an unnamed F.B.I. counterterrorism official reporting in August, more than three months after the Abu Ghraib images appeared, on what he saw during a visit to Guantánamo:

"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more...When I asked the M.P.'s what was going on, I was told that interrogators from the day prior had ordered this treatment, and the detainee was not to be moved. On another occasion...the detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

This is a fairly mild example when judged against the accounts of the "abuses" that have entered the public record. I put quotation marks around the word "abuses" because most of these acts - as the F.B.I. agent acknowledged ("the interrogators from the day prior had ordered this treatment") - were in fact procedures, which would not have been possible without policies that had been approved by administration officials.

-------------------------------------------------

Source: www.nytimes.com (I believe you have to subscribe to read the article hence the copying and pasting here)

Are you seriously suggesting to me as a Christian you find this conduct acceptable?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

[Pastor Larry]

Matt,

I am not defending any particular acts. I am suggesting that human life is important and the need to gain information to save life overrides the personal comfort of enemies.

I find it inconceivable that you do not share my view. I cannot understand how human life is so unvalued to some. When we can save lives of people, it is incumbent on us to do so. Perhaps you have never thought of it in terms of saving lives and that is why you have your perspective. That is fine, but I would encourage some deeper thinking on this.

It is true that torture can be unreliable, but it can also be reliable. I am not suggesting humiliation for the sake of humiliation. I am simply saying that if we are going to do this, we need to do it right. I can't imagine that this is even disputed.

 

[Matt Black]

It is precisely because I value human life and its integrity that I find torture so deplorable. To degrade and effectively destroy one human life on the pretext of possibly saving another is morally equivalent to saying that if the US withdrew from Iraq and then nuked the place that would be a Good Thing because it would save the lives of US service personnel who might otherwise have been killed by the insurgents.

Even if those who support torture are not Christians and thus act without the assumption of unnegotiable God-given respect for human dignity and rights even in your enemy, a purely utilitarian reflection should exclude torture: you are bound to get the wrong people from time to time (given the CIA record on WMD in Iraq one rather tends to assume that they'll get the wrong folk rather often ...). It will be easy to make them admit all kinds of crimes under torture. I would admit anything suggested to me under the threat of torture in five seconds. Anything from eating up my own infant son to urinating against the White House wall.
Torture is not just plain immoral, it is also useless.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

[Pastor Larry]

Matt,

If, by interrogation techniques, you could have obtained information that would have prevented 9/11, would you have done it? If killing the 19 hijackers would have prevented 9/11 would you have done it?

There are all kinds of moral/ethical quandaries that simply aren't as simple as your simplistic approach. For instance, if you are driving a bus filled with people and the brakes fail and you can either swerve to one side and hit a pedestrian or swerve to the other side and hit an oncoming bus, which will you choose?

Or if your daughter was kidnapped, and you had hte kidnapper, what would you support in an effort to find her? I bet you would view it differently then.

My point is that I think it is very easy and convenient to make these statements when you are vastly disconnected from the realities of war and the threat of attack.

Your attempt to liken it to withdrawing and nuking is misguided. I have not suggested widespread or unfocused use of such methods. That is why your analogy breaks down.

You also misrepresent my position by talking about "degrade and effectively destroy one human life." I support no such thing. I already said that. I am talking about limited used of torture that does not involve irreparable harm and death.

So torture can be immoral. It does not have to be. But it seems strange to claim you have respect and dignity for human life when you don't do what you can to protect it and preserve it. Perhaps it's just me, but that doesn't seem to fit.

 

[Matt Black]

But we can't argue on the basis of teleological speculation. Why? Because, whilst hindsight is a wonderful thing, only God, being omniscient, can know the future. Therefore, as Christians, we are forced down the deontological road, and the deontological approach prohibits torture as being immoral per se

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

[Pastor Larry]

Which means what? That theology has no practical implications for you? I think it must have. My theology about the value and sanctity of human life determines why I view this the way I do, and it is why I draw the line and irreparable bodily harm and death. I made no theological speculations about it. I simply said that human life is valuable and it should be preserved.

I think it is far too easy for us to live in teh comfortable realm of theory where we can make broad sweeping statements without having to look in the faces of people who are affected by it.

 

[Matt Black]

You can ask me if I can look into the face of someone who has lost their loved one in 9/11; I can retort by asking you if you can look into the face of a victim of torture (and, yes, I'm afraid ANY form of torture degrades and does "irreperable harm" to use your words). Yes, over 3000 people lost their lives in 9/11. But almost exactly the same number lost their lives in the CIA-instigated/-backed coup in Chile in 1973 which led to CIA-backed torture. And I can tell you that I HAVE looked into the face of a victim of that torture.

The ultimate issue for me is whether Jesus would have done it. The answer is obviously 'no' and therefore neither should we as Christians called to imitate Him do so nor support those who do.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

[Pennsylvania Jim]

We all know that if there is truly a situation where a 9/11 could be avoided with information obtained from a bad guy, he's going to get tortured to give it up.

The real question is:

Do we want to have an actual policy that says so

or

do we want to take the position that says "get it done and don't tell me the details".

 

[Pastor Larry]

Matt,

Torture does not have to cause irreparable harm. When it does, it is wrong.

 

[The Galatian]

And yes, torture within limits is a valid means of extracting needed information.

So, Larry, if one of our future enemies decides he needs some information from our POWs, a little "torture within limits" would be fine with you?

If not, what makes you think they won't do it, if we do it?

 

[Pastor Larry]

They already do it. Did you really not know that?

 

[The Galatian]

(Barbarian suggests that torturing enemy prisoners is not a good idea, since it can be used as justification to torture our POWs)

They already do it. Did you really not know that?

Some do. The Iraqis mistreated some of their American prisoners during Desert Storm. But it was nothing like the abuse our men got in captivity in North Vietnam, when NVA captives were being tortured after we turned them over to the S. Vietnamese.

No. If we torture our captives, the result will be torture of American captives, or at least worse mistreatment than they would otherwise have had. That's how it works. It's naive to suppose otherwise.

 

[Pastor Larry]

That is simply wrong, Galatian. It has been proven wrong time and time again in history. And I am not even recommending wholesale torture and certainly not abuse. But to say that our refraining from torture is causing them to refrain is unjustified by the facts.

 

[Matt Black]

So, what sort of treatment would you consider acceptable. You've said 'not rape', but where do you draw the line?

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Edited for spelnig]

 

[Pastor Larry]

I already answered that Matt, several times. It cannot cause irreparable or serious bodily harm and cannot cause death. It can be psychological; it can be discomfort; it can involved limited food; etc. There are all kinds of things that are within acceptable means given the circumstances. I can't give a catalog of what's acceptable or not.