Paul, to me this is definitely a gray area. I think there are degrees of torture. Abu Graib was not torture, it was humiliation. They had underwear on their heads but at least they kept their heads.
But to me, this is similar to animal testing. I don't want animals to suffer but you have to look at the greater good. Do you torture (in moderation) one terrorist so you can spare the torture of 100,000 who could suffer from a nuclear or biological weapon? And like an animal, do you make one suffer to spare 1,000,000 dying of AIDS in Africa or suffering with Cancer in America?
Like physics laws, and economic laws, every action has a reaction. It is far more important to me to avoid mass suffering by extracting information from terrorists. And in our action in Iraq, we are trying to spare the Iraqis long-term suffering by giving them long awaited Freedom and transforming the middle east into a free society from a despotic one, assuring our future US security. One of the things I appreciate about President Bush is that he is looking at the Big Picture. Like President Lincoln, he wasn't concerned with popularity, only with doing what is right for humanity. That is assuring Freedom or as President Kennedy put it, spreading Liberty. We can't do it everywhere unfortunately. In the end, I don't know if it will work or if Islamists will squelch it but it has to be done for the good of humanity. It comes with a cost and that cost might be a few torture cases. Now we take this in our minds as probably the "24" version of torture. But when you know information is available, you have to get it. Who knows how many will be spared torture as a result.
-Jeremy
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Hey Jeremy,
I totally agree. If you have a terrorist who's got information that can save innocent lives you must extract it at all costs. I've heard people say that torture is the least reliable way to extract information. I'd like to know what they base that on. The Chinese and Russians have used it pretty effectively. It seems to me that you have to use all the tools at your disposal if it is to save innocent lives.
As far as Abu Ghraib goes, I think it was wrong because it was unnecessary. They weren't trying to extract information or anything. They were just being cruel to be cruel. Did it deserve the outrage it got in the media? No way. The Islamic terrorist beheadings deserve outrage not Abu Ghraib.
-Paul B.
Hey Paul, guess who? LOL. Just kidding. I enjoy your blog, it's fun.
In terms of torture, I found in my personal experience, yes (personal experience) it never works. Yes, I can get information, but it still never works. It goes against how we as humans were created. It will end up destroying the one who is "doing" the torturing. We as Americans could really in all actuality though care less, as long as we are safe. Yet, I think we are less safe now than we were six years ago.
The reason Abu Ghraib got so much publicity is because Americans do not support this war, so any minor or major offense will be publicized.
I am not against a "just war", of which I think only one has been fought in the past hundred years.
I am not against the police, I have friends who work all over the country in different P.D.'s, but I would say the same thing to them. Torture only remakes the person torturing into a violent, S.O.B.
Plus, torture if allowed will then flow down from the Federal level into the state level, then onto the street level and believe me, there will be a lot of people lying bloody in ditches. We as Christians have to say, "No" to torture. Not interrogation or techniques of interrogation, the reason people torture is that they are too incumbent in the system to think creatively.
Good word "incumbent", I pulled out the dictionary for that one.
Word, bro!
I'm relieved to hear you say that there is such a thing as a "just war", and that you're all for law enforcement. If you're against torture and there is a limited amount of time to extract info. from a terrorist that will save a city, what do you do to get that info.
-Paul
Hey Paul, in terms of "just war", there are about ten stipulations which have been drawn up to define if a war meets these criteria. I have to look up the people who were responsible for coming up with the "Just War" theories. John Howard Yoder, who taught at Notre Dame, and also wrote that book, The Politics of Jesus talked at length about the differences between the Anabaptist/Mennonite perspective and our mainline Protestant perspectives in terms of War.
I hope you understand that I believe we as a nation should have intervened to stop the Genocide in Rwanda and Darfur, because it was European Colonization which contributed to some of those problems in the first place. Which is also why, Europe sent in a peacekeeping team to Rwanda. (Maybe to ease some guilt)
I am also, not necessarily "all for" law enforcement. I don't think that locking up the poor works. There aren't many rich people in prison. So, the gospel seems to speak a different language than what we see Police Departments doing.
I do not like a blurring of the church and state, because the church always suffers. I also do not like a separation of Church and State, because society suffers. There needs to be a redefinition of what the Mission of God in the world looks like and how it affects everything.
If I only rely on "laws", I will never be able to truly affect people, because laws can only do so much, then they fail.
The situation which you presented begs the question, "Why are people terrorists?" Because people believe that the only way to be heard or affect change is through violence. Once you have people wanting to blow up buildings and down airplanes, it is almost too late. We need to talk with terrorism to find out, why?
We can not look at them as "evil", us as "good", because we can not deny the goodness and evilness of all of humanity.
Torture, beating a suspect may get the info. and it may not. But one thing it will do is make everyone involved more violent. Suspects want to confess, it is inherent in us to want to tell people what we have done or are going to do. Getting that information needs to be something we do, not by direct confrontation, but by "listening".
The military is limited in what they do, because of their training. After all, not a lot of people in the military, join the military thinking the U.S. has ever done anything "bad".
My allegiance is to Christ, not the state, allowing us to bring peace to humanity, but not through the sword, which makes Christ very political, but it is what we call, "The Forgotten Ways." (Alan Hirsch)-Jewish Believer coined the phrase.
Talk soon, Paul.
There are two surprising statements you made that I want to comment on. First you mention that we lock up the poor. True that there may be many people of low economic means in prison, but that doesn't mean that they are locked up because they are poor. When they're booked at the police station they are not charged with "poorness". They're charged with whatever crime they were brought in on. Be careful that you don't get mixed up between correlation and causation. There may be a correlation between the crime and the poor, but that doesn't mean that poor economic conditions caused it.
Everyone has a choice in the behaviors that they choose. There are many poor who aren't in jail. How is it that they weren't "coerced" into a life of crime by their economic circumstances? They simply chose to do the right things.
The next surprising statement is when you wrote about "why people are terrorists". I do agree that they blame all of their negative circumstances on the west, but that doesn't mean it's true. The Islamo-Facist terrorists are in an extreme state of denial if they believe that we are the cause of their problems. It's the same as the non-sensical rantings of the white supremicists against blacks, or the Nazi propaganda against Jews. It's the Blame Game!!!! This is what evil people do to ease their own guilt and sense of responsibility.
Ultimately, the people of those countries are so bombarded with that lie, that many of them become brain-washed and start to believe it. Not only that, you add a religious reward into the mix, and people begin looking forward to martyring not only themselves, but their children, and even strapping bombs to animals to surprise attack people. If you can't label that as evil, then nothing is. Yes, some things are just that simple.
From a spiritual perspective let's look at Cain and Abel. Abel's sacrifice was accepted and Cain's wasn't. One could say that Abel was the "haves" and Cain was one of the "have nots". So what rose up in Cain.......murder!!!!! God said to Cain that if he had just done what was right, he would have been accepted. Abel wasn't Cain's problem, jealousy, envy, and murder was. I believe that this is very much the heart attitude of the terrorists. I also believe that the world wants to accept peaceful Muslim people and nations more, but the violent actions of the radicals are making it very difficult.
Rudy Guiliani put it this way. "The terrorists on 9/11 didn't attack us for something that America's done wrong, they attacked us for what America's done right."
-Paul
My first question is, "How do you know that poor people are not targeted by police?" When I make a comment about the police, it is not an abstract concept, it is reality; the reality of which is deeper and more systemic than I think sometimes you want to admit, even though you know it is. When someone is arrested when they are poor, how do they know their rights, how do they know that great document called the Constitution was written for them? The problem is they don't and the police use their ignorance to secure a confession.
One hundred years ago, who inhabited the ghettos of Europe? Sometimes it sounds as if you think humans are a "blank slate", tabula rasa, and that we are simply individuals who just make choices, no matter our upbringing, culture, religious convictions, pain, poverty, abuse (sexual, physical, emotional, mental). This is a reason that the church needs to be ALWAYS forgiving, confessing, loving in a social setting, so that others can see the love of God in the midst of their pain. That they can experience God right where they are.
Abel (hevel) Cain (Cayin). Think about those words and that is who they were? Who then was the "have" and who was the "have not"?
God LOVES the poor, i.e. those who are "nothing, or a breath, a vapor, (hevel)" you know, Israel in Egypt. It doesn't say that Israel cried out to God, it only says, "God heard their groaning, that it went up to God!" (Exodus 2:23-25)
Thanks.
Hey Paul P.,
I accept what you say about there being police corruption. I never said there wasn't. All I said was that an officer can't book a person and charge them with "poorness". If they trump up a charge, and I'm sure that some do, they run a huge risk because there are checks and balances: Internal Affairs, the legal system, good cops......etc. If a policeman does something corrupt, my guess is that they went around the system, rather than followed protocol to achieve their corrupt goals.
Even in a perfect system there will always be problems, because there will always be corrupt people with their own agendas. My point is that the founders understood this to the utmost when they created our form of government with all the checks and balances it has. The idea of checks and balances is woven into almost all government and even private organizations. This accountability will always help minimize negative forces within any organization.
Another assumption I have about the Police, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the overwhelming majority of police officers really just want to protect and serve, and that every day they're doing the best they can. I really view them as heroes.
Now the issue of forgiveness. Of course Christians need to be forgiving of everyone, that does not mean that those we forgive are ready to receive it. The two thieves on the cross illustrates the point that a person has a responsibility to be repentant in order to receive the grace of forgiveness. Only the repentant thief was with the Lord in paradise. Christian forgiveness does not negate the role of the government to enforce laws and punish criminal behavior.
-Paul
Hey Paul, I agree with what you say about the role of government and that corruption is basically inevitable.
I hope it does not seem as though I am correcting your viewpoint about the police. I simply have a radically different viewpoint about the police. I agree with the whole Romans 13 structure, so therefore, I do not believe that we should kill to bring about change, which is implicit in that text.
I do have another question which is, "If we accept the structure of government in this country, and work towards change, then why should we not accept other structures of government in other countries?" Although we actually do, because we trade with Communist nations, dictatorships, etc.
I mean African Americans in the U.S. fifty years ago did not think, "Wow, I have all the freedom which the Founding Fathers promised that I would have." I don't think they thought, "I can speak my mind, express my opinions, tell people directly what I thought and they would respect me the same".
Also, Do you see any similarities between the radical fundamental Muslims and the radical, fundamental Christians in the U.S.? I mean Tim LaHaye's series has sold millions of copies, by writing books detailing how the U.S. is the "Light to the nations", and through our military power we will defeat Armeggedon. That is absolutely not true, and Christians need to speak against that premise. Also, look at the names of those he considers evil and those he considers good. This I believe radically influences what Christians believe. So, Christians who have done serious exegesis of the text and study the historical context of Jesus, as well as the missionary endeavors of Paul, do not believe what LaHaye says. How though after years and years of Christians being fed false teaching do we say, "Revelation is about how to live in the midst of a powerful, corrupt Empire, not a specifically end times scenario, soon to play out like LaHaye thinks? I find this to be quandary, because whenever teachers start to say, "Rapture?" Where does it say, "Rapture?" People start to become irritated. The word is "parousia" in I Thessolonians, which is a "coming, not a going out". Anyways, I wrote all this to say that I think it is paramount to living a grassroots Christianity, which I think you and I both agree. Thanks, talks soon.
As far as your point about the civil rights movement. Of course blacks didn't feel totally accepted in America right off the bat. But, I think that underscores my point about America's struggle which is to embody the founding principles (that we are created equal). There is always going to be a lag between the passing of a law and society's acceptance of it. America got it right when we repealed the segregation laws and passed equal rights laws that do not discriminate on the basis of gender, or race. And again our progress in civil rights has paved the way for countries like South Africa to reverse their apartheid laws.
As far as Tim LaHaye goes, I have read about half of his Left Behind series. I don't agree with his end time theology at all, but I don't see that he is stirring up murder in the hearts of Christians at all. There are some battles with gun play in that series, but it was always in the context of self-defense, and many times the Christian characters were being cornered and God miraculously delivered them without violence.
I don't think you can equivocate even the most radical "christian" fringe elements with the what seems to be the mainstream of Islamic teaching. There are kid's shows in the Middle East with people dressed as a Mickey Mouse type of character indoctrinating them to kill the infidel. It is pervasive and there is no vocal repudiation of it. If there were American Christians that said or did those things, they would be vilified by Christians worldwide immediately.
A quick disclaimer, I do not believe that the majority of Muslims want to carry out the murderous aims of their radical leaders, but I don't believe that they are a "religion of peace" either. The radical islamic elements have made it even worse. They have hijacked the muslim mainstream with intimidation tactics and many who want to get out don't know how to. Their religion has wanted world dominance by the sword since the beginning, throughout the middle ages with the Ottoman Empire, through the 1700-1800's with the barbary pirates, through last century with the unprovoked attacks on Israel, right up through today where muslims worldwide are targeting innocent people in marketplaces, bus stops, shopping malls, restaurants, office buildings, school buses, churches, synogogues, colleges, and even mosques. No, it is not the same in scope, influence, or degree to the worst elements in the so-called "christian fringe".
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