The American Freedom Network

Torture: Some Questions

     Laying aside the obvious – that it is a sad day when a free and civilized Christian nation has to debate the merits of torture, some questions on the subject come to mind?

1.)  Did we torture British prisoners for information, at a time when their army was on our soil, their troops burning Washington, D.C., and our national existence at stake?
2.)  Did we torture Confederate prisoners for information when Lee was marching through the Pennsylvania countryside and the future of the Union was very much in doubt?
3.)  Did we torture Pancho Villa’s followers to get intel on his movements?
4.)  Did we torture German POWs to get information on their nuclear program, or did we torture Herman Goering, et al, after the war, to obtain evidence pertaining to the charges laid against them at Nuremburg?
5.)  Did we try Nazis or Japanese prisoners after World War Two for charges pertaining to torture?
6.)  Did we torture Communist POWs during the Korean or Vietnam wars, or did we instead complain that they tortured ours?
7.)  Did we torture Saddam Hussein to get information on the WMD he supposedly had?

     The obvious conclusion to draw is that the poblic justification of torture as a policy instrument is novel in our history, and a departure from the standards of conduct to which our warriors hold themselves.  (Note that it was, and is, a civilian-led initiative in and out of our government to use torture – the military did not want it.)  Army Field Manual 27-10, “The Law of War,” is quite clear on this, and it even uses the term ‘chivalry’ in describing the code of conduct that governs our actions in war.

      A remedy exists for dealing with terrorists that does not involve abandoning centuries of jurisprudence in a panicked rush to deal with the emergency du jour:  Piracy laws sanction the right of nations to execute those guilty of high crimes who are outside the reach of the laws of any nation, which also applies to terrorists.  We can execute the guilty, if we choose.  We do not need to stoop to their level by making gay bondage porn with our prisoners, some of whom are guilty of nothing, as some did at Abu Gahrib, in the name of ‘intelligence gathering.’  (And remember, what is done to them today might be done to anyone declared an outlaw ‘domestic terrorist’ tomorrow, as is the case with DHS Sec’y Napitolano targeting combat veterans and my fellow Bible-and-gun klingons as potential security threats recently.)