A Topic in the Air but One That Political Candidates Declined to Touch: Torture of Prisoners
[In t]he October issue of Theology Today... Jeremy Waldron, a professor of law at New York University, that “we have no choice but to conduct a national debate about torture.”
That debate, Professor Waldron continues, is not about stopping torture by “corrupt and tyrannical regimes” but about whether the American people and the American nation want “to remain part of the international human rights consensus that torture is utterly beyond the pale.” There were few if any signs of such a debate in the midterm election campaigns.
Torture is different. It is such a stain on personal and national character that nothing but appalling photographs could have forced the subject to the fore. When it comes to pressing the question of official complicity, no stack of equivocating documents can have similar force. In a season of shameless attack ads, torture is still too shameful to be debated.
As for religious reaction, Fleming Rutledge, the Episcopal priest and noted preacher, said in this issue of Theology Today, “In my lifetime, I do not remember any major public question being so studiously ignored as this one.”
“Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions, in their highest ideals, hold dear. It degrades everyone involved — policy makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation’s most cherished values. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable.
“Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed?
“Let America abolish torture now — without exceptions.”
This article is absolutely on target. While many candidates debated the war in Iraq in the campaign, the great moral issue of the US government permitting torture was avoided.
The two topics go hand in hand in regard to the US position in the world, and, more importantly, the status of the collective soul of America: an immoral invasion and an immoral policy towards detainees. The immoral invasion opened the door for torture by lowering the moral standard.
This has been a great shame on this nation. One that will not easily be undone. And one that no politician seems willing to take on in any serious way at the present.
The citizens will have to lead the way.
GP
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