Torturing as Policy

We have an issue to face. As an individual and as a Country, we need to look squarely at the corner in which we have painted ourselves.

The floor we are in the process of refinishing is planked with over two hundred years of Republican Democracy. The paint we used is saturated with over two thousand years of ethical precepts now popularized by the phrase “Judeo-Christian" Ethic.

Yes, there have been incidences of erroneous thinking, resulting in violent episodes in our past -- everything from the displacement and killing of Native Americans to 200 years of slavery from the mid-1600s to 1865—and that's not even counting our actions in Iran, South America and elsewhere in the 20th century.

But, in fairness, America has also done incalculable good in the world, everything from the Marshall Plan after the Second World War to providing an example for the world of free speech, civil rights, the rule of law and a long-lived democracy.

But America now finds itself in the desert. We are being tempted – not with all the riches of the world – but with the “justification” to flatten and neutralize our moral conduct. Winning the War on Terror now seems like such a crucial goal in certain quarters that almost any means may seem justified. If we have to abuse some prisoners in the pursuit of vital intelligence, this argument goes, well, so be it.

But this argument is a fallacy. If in the pursuit of high ideals we use low means we'll be remembered primarily for the low means—just as the iconic images of the U.S. in Iraq are now the photos coming out of Abu Ghraib.

The tempter continually adds fuel to this fire as he senses our waxing and waning. Our ire is stoked with bizarre images of beheading and other atrocities. The disgust, hate and anger generated from these images severs our tie to our divinity. We can be manipulated into almost any abhorrent action if we disconnect from our Source. (See how well the scheme is working?!)

How easy is it then to accept the premise that the end does justify the means, and that we can do evil so that good may come? We will all be asked to choose, or the choice will be made without us. Take care.