Torture violates religious teaching, should be abolished [View All]

[struggle4progress]

Rev. Bridges
October 07, 2006

... A little over a week ago, we all witnessed the Senate pass a bill which allows the President of the United States to define which types of interrogation techniques are lawful and which are not. I fear that many of the techniques which may be approved, if used on either you or me, would be described by us as torture. While the names used for them have been sanitized, the end result is the experience of extreme discomfort in the recipient. Make no doubt about it — forced standing, which does not sound all that terrible, and which we have already used on our prisoners, can become extremely painful if conducted for over 40 hours. Indeed, a tour of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany reveals small booths in which prisoners were enclosed — forcing them to stand for as long as their Nazi guards demanded. Such was and is torture.

Worse, the bill recently passed by both houses allows information obtained from torture, degrading, and inhumane interrogations to be used as evidence in the military tribunals which we are using to try selected prisoners. The bill also prohibits the prisoners from obtaining effective oversight by our judicial system. Few legal challenges are allowed. The bill also, in turn, attempts to protect the interrogators and their superiors from being accused of and tried for having committed war crimes. This protection is retroactive to Sept. 11, 2001.

While some would hold these concerns to reflect political issues, I believe they are much more than simple political issues. They are moral, spiritual and religious issues. They define who we are as a people, indirectly state what we believe the nature of humanity to be, and shape our soul as a nation ...

I believe that passage of this bill was a sin — a sin against God, and a sin against humanity. We as a nation need to repent and change our way — and in the process, repeal this ill-conceived law. As people of faith, we are better and more humane than this bill portrays us. Let our senators and representatives know this fact. We need to abolish torture now, without exception!

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061007/NEWS18/610070307/-1/NEWS