A Moral Imperative

The question of prisoner abuse, including torture, is a specter that haunts America. Candidates are forced to debate it, Congress is pressed to legislate on it and the Oval Office finds it necessary to (repeatedly) deny it. Accused of torturing and abusing detainees, our nation has fallen into disrepute. Our record on human rights, once proud but now tarnished, is a matter of growing concern.

As an ordained Presbyterian minister, I would like to offer a Christian perspective on why the United States should not be engaging in torture and abuse, and why the prison facility at Guantánamo Bay must be closed.

January 11 marked the sixth anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay. For over six years now, nearly all of the detainees have been held there without charge, and with no end in sight. The vast majority of detainees have not been charged with, much less convicted of, committing acts of terrorism. In fact, the only detainee convicted at Guantanamo was an Australian who pled guilty as a way to GET OUT of Guantanamo and be sent home. Despite the fact our government admits that many of the approximately 380 men still held at Guantánamo Bay are innocent, they remain imprisoned.

In 2006 Congress passed and the president signed the Military Commissions Act. This law took away habeas corpus, the right to hear and challenge the charges against you, for those held at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. It lets any president declare -- on his or her own -- who is an enemy combatant, decide who should be held indefinitely without being charged with a crime, and define what is or is not torture and abuse.

The cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment our government is inflicting on the men held at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere goes against the core Christian conviction that all human life is sacred. Torture and abuse violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions hold dear. It debases everyone involved -- policy-makers, perpetrators, bystanders and victims. It contradicts our nation's most cherished ideals. Any laws and policies that permit torture and abuse are shocking and morally intolerable.

I write here not about whether torture and abuse "works," nor about what our country's use of torture and abuse might mean for our military personnel when they are captured, nor about the effect our use of it may have on how the United States is perceived around the world. While I believe the answer to each of these matters leads to a compelling "no" against torture, I write only from a moral or religious perspective. I write, because despite what anyone believes about the effectiveness of these tactics (and I believe the overwhelming evidence is that torture and abuse is not effective), they are morally wrong and should never be used by the United States against anyone under any circumstances.

The urge to humiliate, torment and degrade lurks deep within every human breast. Under conducive circumstances, no one can entirely withstand it. Sadism is not born but made. That is why criminal means, once chosen, cannot readily be contained, and are soon preferred. Torture and abuse, once chosen, both proliferates and corrupts. Proliferation is its dimension of breadth, and corruption its dimension of depth. Torture and abuse defiles victim and torturer alike. It corrodes the society that permits it. It undermines the rule of law, and then destroys the tyrannies that it spawns. Corrupting the soul, it eventually corrupts everything in its path. Torture and abuse is itself the ticking bomb.

My condemnation of torture and abuse is not based on any political ideology or on the laws or treaties of any nation. Rather, I am guided by a higher law that serves as a compass for all of humanity. As a person of faith -- who would value our common humanity and our religious responsibility to treat all people with decency and the due process protections of civilized law -- I urge our leaders immediately to stop the use of "alternative interrogation techniques," repeal the Military Commissions Act, and close Guantánamo Bay and all secret prisons, without delay.

I am convinced that nothing less than the soul of our nation is at stake in the debate around how we treat those in our custody. It is time for religious people and all people of conscience to break through the barrier of silence.

How can our country lead the world with moral authority if we do not hold ourselves to the same high standards that we demand from others?

How can we hold others accountable for illicit practices like waterboarding if we have adopted them ourselves?

What does it profit a country to gain the whole world but lose its soul?

Comments

[IronDragon]

I am not a religious person, determining that where I put my toes and my nose is what I can do for morality. Religion aside, however, I am full of agreement with you.

[alkamm]

If only we could have not gone down the path of officially sanctioned torture. Cheney's famous invocation of going to the dark side to save us from the dark side might have been acceptable if he'd have taken responsibility when his lead was followed by subordinates.
He might have been able to back away from some of his public statements if he had the integrity to do so.
Instead, the administration lobbied hard for the right to ignore the Geneva Convention and to torture anybody in their custody. And when caught mistreating those caught up in it's dragnets, the administration absolved itself and its higher authorities from responsibility by claiming only the little guys were responsible. And if they want waterboarding to be used, why not simply admit it rather than destroying the evidence?
This administration has made evangelical Christianity the moral foundation of it's good work, and said evangelical Christianity has proven to be far from Hunsinger's thoughtful Christian practice. These Christianists use the message of love and turn it to hate. They turn not the other cheek, they turn to torture. They can absolve anything we do from being reprehensible, and point the finger at anybody who criticizes them. They are the worst exponents of the clear water of Christ, and they muddy not only their religion, but our society with their hateful, wrong-headed perspectives. They are counterfeit Christians. Hunsinger is the real coin.