Former President George W. Bush has famously declared in his new memoir any lack of regret for waterboarding three al Qaeda killers in 9-11's immediate aftermath. He plausibly asserts that their waterboarding produced actionable intelligence saving lives from impending terror international attacks. Of course, all three al Qaeda operatives remain imprisoned and are reportedly in good health. Despite the passage of eight years, the waterboarding of three beastly mass murderers still excites selective outrage, especially on the Religious Left.
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), which includes a host of Mainline Protestant denominations, left-leaning, Catholic orders, liberal evangelicals, and the Islamic Society of North America, naturally is indignant. Responding to Bush's recollection, it wants a "comprehensive investigation of our nation's use of torture" and asks: "Should we as a nation hold accountable those who violated U.S. law and our most fundamental moral standards?" NRCAT presumably wants formal charges against President Bush.
Like most such religious groups, NRCAT's interest in "torture" is focused almost entirely on the U.S. and its aggressive interrogation of al Qaeda prisoners in the hair-raising months after 9-11. Ongoing and less ambiguous torture polices by various communist and Islamist regimes, widely practiced against political and religious dissidents rather than terrorists plotting murder, do not much interest NRCAT.
National Council of Churches (NCC) chief Michael Kinnamon, whose group belongs to NRCAT, even penned an aggrieved column in the Huffington Post contrasting President Bush's "claimed" Christian faith with his approval of "torture." Kinnamon helpfully quoted Jesus' Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," as an ostensible command against waterboarding.
Personally, if I were so demonically possessed as to plot the vicious mass murder of innocents, I would much prefer to be waterboarded into revealing the scheme rather than some day stand before God responsible for such horror. But Kinnamon admits no moral complexity. And in typical fashion, like most of the Religious Left, which is essentially pacifist, he confuses Gospel commands for nonviolence by believers against personal enemies with the divinely ordained punitive obligations of civil states.
President Bush, like any chief magistrate of a nation, had a moral responsibility to protect his people, by force when necessary, against the depredations of foreign enemies. Christ's apostles specifically affirmed the state's divinely ordained vocation to "wield the sword" against evil doers. But the pacifist Religious Left shuns these Scriptures and instead insists that cheerfully turning the other cheek is the state's virtuous response to aggression and murder.
"Bush's prideful defense of torture in his new memoir, Decision Points, is utterly incomprehensible to me," Kinnamon tut-tuts, referring to the waterboarding recollection. "It's also unrecognizable to the fundamental values of this country, and of Bush's own professed Christian faith." The church official claims the admissions extracted from the three waterboarded terrorists saved no one and actually "cost the lives of both American soldiers and civilians." He offers no evidence for either assertion. And even if Kinnamon admitted their information had saved lives, would he then refrain from criticizing Bush? Almost certainly not. Confronted by the "sad and shameful moment" of a U.S. President having "acknowledged ordering torture," Kinnamon insists President Bush "has left us no choice" but to hold him "accountable" under "our own laws" against "torture." So like NRCAT, Kinnamon seems to want Bush prosecuted for waterboarding three conspiring al Qaeda killers eight years ago.
Also writing for the Huffington Post, former National Association of Evangelicals lobbyist Richard Cizik, now working for the reputedly George Soros-supported New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, similarly excoriated Bush in an open letter to him. Cizik ominously asks: "Should we as a nation hold you personally accountable for violations of U.S. law and our most fundamental moral standards?" Evidently also hoping for a show trial of Bush, Cizik's answer is clearly YES!
Cizik asserts waterboarding is "unquestionably torture," more than a "mere dunk in the water," and intended to "scare the victim into a desperate condition where he would reveal critical information." For Cizik, of course, the "victim" is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al Qaeda plotter behind 9-11, the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that murdered over 200, the beheading of Daniel Pearl, and other grizzly crimes that Cizik, Kinnamon, and NRCAT prefer not to describe.
Evidently Cizik has been very embarrassed during his travels to North Africa and the Middle East, where "ordinary citizens, "with a "pained expression," purportedly have asked poor Cizik: "'Do you know that your government, allegedly a 'Christian country,' is conducting torture? You should be ashamed.'" Cizik does not mention whether he asked these offended North Africans and Middle Easterners about their own regimes' far more vigorous, ongoing and undisputed torture policies.
Largely uninterested in torture elsewhere, Cizik wants a "Commission on Inquiry" to really get to the bottom of "torture" in America. He scoldingly concludes: "Messrs. Bush and Cheney, you brought us to this place. Shame on you!"
Such scolding purists insist that all waterboarding is "torture" and therefore a grave crime whose perpetrators from the Bush Administration must be punished. Even if waterboarding does meet this definition, does the simulated drowning of three mass murdering terrorists eight years, all of whom are very much alive and well, rank as one of our century's great outrages, as critics seem to believe? How far back in history would their "Commission on Inquiry" go? Perhaps President Franklin Roosevelt's quick 1942 secret trial and execution of six Nazi saboteurs, who had yet even to commit their planned terrorism, should also be examined.
And in the interests of clarity, religious critics of waterboarding should directly articulate their seeming theology. Preferably thousands of innocents should die anguishing deaths before one terrorist must endure even a few moments of simulated drowning. Such clarity would help us understand their arguments better.
Letter to the Editor
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Taking Back the United Methodist Church.
From the desk of the Reverend J. Wright:
To: Amerikkka
Oh, I see y'all are at it again, the united states of KKK is torturin' and killin'. And who do we have preachin' it? That crazy old George Bush Jr., that's who! How many times do I have to tell y'all to stay out of da bushes?
Look here, Amerikkka is damned, and that's in the Bible! All dis bidness about torturin' and drownin' some poor Muslim brothers is pure craziness. Don't you know that your fate is already sealed? Dis here country is full up of nothin' but racist, bigoted, redneck, garlic-nosed, jewish ofays and honkeys! And any country full up of folks like that is damned, and that's in de Bible!
Listen here, George Bush Jr. was doin' nothin' but tryin' to put off the judgment that's already decreed against dis here racist country. Y'all all hate black folks. On top of dat he tried to stop abortion! Abortion oughtta be a holy sacrament, and dat's in de Bible! He opposed gay marriage! Well, dat's a holy union, and dat's in de Bible too!
Don't you blue-eyed, albino devils know anything? All you do is set aroun' worryin' about abortion, an' gay marriage, and terrorists, when all of these things are proclaimed in de Bible! Why can't you get on de bus? Or at least get down here under de bus? Because you won't admit what you are and what you deserve, dat's why!
So quit all dis frettin' about de terrorists and just take your punishment like you ought to. I used to tell Barry dat all de time, but here lately dem jews won't let me near him. Well, now dat times are rough for him, all dem jews are jumpin' ship. I bet right soon here y'all are gonna see Barry invitin' me up to de "White" House to be his spiritual mentor again! And then you really will see dat Amerikkka is damned! And dat's in de Bible!
Very Sincerely,
The Reverend J. Wright
http://beautifulletters-bls.blogspot.com/
Booger, you crack me up.
Booger, A splendid excursion into ebonics.
Thank God in Heaven above, that the US Military doesn't attract people with this type of mindset, otherwise we'd still be a British Colony. Just keep pretending that our current enemies, and their warped religious philosophy, are people you can negotiate with, they're not. It's War, don't you get that? Did you forget what happened on 9/11? I didn't, and I won't!! Islam today, like the Nazi's and Japs before them, pushed a Peace loving Nation too far, and now they're surprised that we don't want to take it lying down. What would it take for these American pacifist to get enraged by? San Francisco getting nuked? A biological attack is Seattle? I could care less about waterboarding, even if it sucks to have it done to you, if it stopped just one attack on us, it was worth it. You've got to ask yourself one question, whose side are you on? Don't hide behind your religion as your excuse for outrage, it gets old, just admit that you're a pussy.
Let's be clear about who the so-called "Religious" left are, folks. They are false prophets. Period. They DO NOT speak for the True God. Again, the oldest trick in The Book is to mix the truth with a lie. Don't fall for it, America. It is these people who not only have historically distorted the truth of the Word of God, but the truth of the closest thing to holy writ in terms of a civil document there has ever been- the Constitution of the United States. Pay no attention to them.
Indeed so. Point in fact: The corrupt National Council of Churches Chief dude quoted "Jesus' Golden Rule"? Well.. uh... it isn't in the Bible! Proving once again that the Left gets to make up their own stuff. They have no fear of the true God.
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