If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
As people of faith, we know that torture is always and unequivocally wrong. God created all people with dignity and worth, and we grieve knowing that inflicting harm and cruelty on another human being scars and diminishes us all.
A disturbing trend among some Republicans lately, as we saw in last night's debate, is to treat any terror-related crime as something completely new and different, which needn't comply with even our most basic sense of decency, let alone U.S. law.
At last week's debate, Republican presidential candidates Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann defended waterboarding. The United States has long considered waterboarding to be torture.
During last week's debate, four of the GOP candidates promoted "enhanced interrogation tactics," including waterboarding, as necessary for national security. Plain and simple, waterboarding is torture. As such, it is illegal under U.S. and international law.
Republicans simply cannot jumpstart the economy on the back of a new war. There is no money left, the military is broken and there is civil disobedience in the streets. People are downtrodden. That was then, it is different now.
Yoo, the mastermind of the infamous "torture memos" that provided "legal" justification for torture in the form of waterboarding, has now expressed his qualified support for the killing of al-Awlaki.
"We're the 99%" has helped shift media and public attention back to inequality and jobs. Matalin and Rosen debate whether it's more a hippie flash mob or Paris '68... and will the killing of al-Awlaki mean more Drones by more nations? Then: Slutwalks.
The Darth Vader of the Bush Administration, Dick Cheney wielded more power -- and was more dismissive of Congressional prerogatives -- than any vice president in American history.
In the process of promoting his book, former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that he supports waterboarding of suspects, just as long as they are ...
"Three prisoners have been waterboarded but not at Guantanamo and not by the Department of Defense. They were waterboarded with the authority of President Bush and the approval of the Department of Justice."
Is the Libyan war legal? Was bin Laden's killing legal? Were those "enhanced interrogation techniques" legal? These questions are irrelevant. In terms of "foreign policy," and "national security," the U.S. is now a post-legal society.
In the famous ticking time bomb hypothetical, it is moral to torture one person in order to save the lives of thousands, that the right to life trumps the right to physical integrity and security. This is a false construct.
Torture not only stained our reputation; it weakened American national security. It has alienated entire communities, undermining the capacity of the U.S. to fight terrorism, and given al Qaeda a public relations boon.
In the early parts of the 2000 campaign, John McCain was proving himself to be a different type of Republican. While he was as conservative as the res...
Not only did Muhammad categorically reject torture, but he espoused equal treatment -- both physically and emotionally -- for prisoners of war in an era plagued with enslavement.
Mary and Wayne Barrett debate what bin Laden's demise says about Obama -- no more 97 pound weakling! -- and about W and torture. Then, should Dems duplicate Rove's secret money machine?
