God Help Us

Flirtin' with disaster,
Y'all know what I mean.
You know the way we run our lives,
It makes no sense to me
--Flirtin' with Disaster, Molly Hatchet

But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side
--With God on Our Side, Bob Dylan

Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear;
nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves
and another among Men.
It is a man's part to discern them
--The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

________________

Marc Theissen, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, argues that waterboarding is in line with Catholic doctrine in his book, “Courting Disaster: How the C.I.A. Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack”.

Thiessen, a practicing Roman Catholic, says that water-boarding suspected terrorists was "not only useful and desirable, but permitted by the teachings of the Catholic Church." Perhaps, if your name is Torquemada and your business is The Inquisition. Otherwise, perhaps we should age-advance 500 years.

"Mr. Thiessen makes two basic arguments. First, he says that waterboarding, the simulated drowning technique used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the professed chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, and others, is not torture.

"Second, he invokes Catholic teaching to defend what he calls 'coercive interrogation'." (Catholic Defender of Waterboarding Gets an earful From Critics.)

Borrowing from the catechism, Thiessen states, "A captured terrorist is an unjust aggressor who retains the power to kill many thousands by withholding information about planned attacks,” and that such a person must be rendered unable to do harm.

How does Thiessen square the concept of being a terrorist with that of being a terror suspect? The two are not the same. Does God speak to guys like Thiessen and tell him who should be tortured with water-boarding? Moreover, it used to be in the western democratic world we did not torture either suspects or convicted terrorists.

Thiessen writes, “the intent of the interrogator is not to cause harm to the detainee; rather, it is to render the aggressor unable to cause harm to society.” But if a person is being interrogated (=tortured), how can he be "the aggressor"? At this stage he is rendered immobile, and the aggressor in this case is the one perpetrating the torture.

Further, he excuses the choice to water-board as being made under duress: "We were in the middle of a war ..." But this was and is not WAR, this is terrorism. The two are not synonymous.

In a non-sequitur, Thiessen suggests that since "[t]housands of American soldiers have been willing to undergo water-boarding as part of their resistance training ... it stands to reason that it is not torture." This is an illogical conclusion. Just because it has been deemed routine, does not excuse its irrelevance or barbarity. Just because something has always been done a certain way doesn't make it the right way.

Why does the U.S. allow water-boarding in its SERE training? If it is illegal to use this method on prisoners, it follows that it should be illegal for use on military personnel. How does the military justify the torture of its elite soldiers?

Is the goal to produce Billy Badasses who will do the same to others without batting an eye?