Torturing people is unchristian

It's odd you have to spell it out isn't it? Yet Bush and his fucked in the head posse of anal polyps have managed to tarnish one of the great bastions of freedom, the US, as being akin to some tin pot dictatorship where mirror shade clad generals watch their counter insurgency troops troop past on parade.

Yep, they started torturing people. Dress it up how you like, enhanced interrogation etc, it's torture as any normal person would understand it. I do however especially like when Bush admin hectors 'We do not torture' when they most clearly do use techniques that are torture and, get this, when they want to use the techniques that even a right wing toe rag would concede is torture, they ship them to another country who will use said methods.

Great stuff.

This article muses on the ethics of torture. It is especially good since it lists all the reasons why torturing suspects is counter productive. Here's the relevant bit snipped.

There are numerous reasons why torture is wrong.

• Torture is a violation of U.S. and international law.

• If we torture, we cannot object to the torturing of our solders and agents. This is why the U.S. military opposes torture. Senator John McCain, a victim of Vietnamese torture, speaks eloquently to this point.

• Although movies and novels can create artificial scenarios where information is needed in minutes in order to avoid catastrophes, in fact these situations rarely if ever arise in real life. It would require 1) an immediately impending catastrophe, 2) a captive, 3) who actually has information, 4) that could be used to stop the catastrophe, 5) who will give accurate and timely information under torture, and 6) we are capable to putting into action a response in time to avert the disaster. The stars are rarely so aligned except on TV programs like "24."

• The experts who have studied the question find that torture does not work. Information given under torture may in fact be false. People who know nothing will admit to anything and give false information to stop the pain. People who know something can lie. Other interrogation techniques provide better information both quantitatively and qualitatively.

• The work of torture attracts sadists who are more interested in torturing than in getting information. These people cannot be controlled, and we cannot trust their judgments about what is appropriate. And a decent person who engages in torture soon becomes degraded by the experience. Is this a line of work you would recommend to your son or daughter? As John Paul II said, “the dignity of man is as much debased in his torturer as in the torturer’s victim.”

• The history of Christian and Islamic martyrs shows that people can resist and that they become heroes to their communities when they are killed.

• Torture was wrong when done by the Romans, by the Inquisition, by Queen Elizabeth, by Hitler, by Stalin and by Mao. This is not the company we wish to keep.

The amazing things is that on point three, the 24 fantasy, the leading Republican presidential contenders in debates, save one, screamed about how 'yep, I'd do anything, ANYTHING' it took to get info out of a suspect. The one exception being McCain who unlike the fuckwards who are sending out a bat signal for Jack Bauer, was actually brutally tortured for the five years he was held to the point he can't actually lift one of arms higher than his shoulder.

Bush and Cheney have sullied their country and easily made a mockery of the former US leadership on human rights. They should be impeached. Perhaps one day they will be.