Time to Excommunicate the President

“President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

“‘The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror,’ Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. ‘So today I vetoed it,’ Bush said. The bill he rejected provides guidelines for intelligence activities for the year and has the interrogation requirement as one provision. It cleared the House in December and the Senate last month….

“Bush said the CIA must retain use of ’specialized interrogation procedures’ that the military doesn’t need. The military methods are designed for questioning ‘lawful combatants captured on the battlefield,’ while intelligence professionals are dealing with ‘hardened terrorists’ who have been trained to resist the techniques in the Army manual, the president said.

“Among the techniques the field manual prohibits are hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes, stripping them naked, forcing them to perform or mimic sexual acts, or beating, electrocuting, burning or otherwise physically hurting them. They may not be subjected to hypothermia or mock executions. It does not allow food, water and medical treatment to be withheld. Dogs may not be used in any aspect of interrogation.

“But waterboarding is the most high-profile and controversial of the interrogation methods in question. It involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his or her cloth-covered face to simulate and create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years to the Spanish Inquisition and is condemned by nations around the world and human rights organizations as torture.” — CNN, “Bush Vetoes Bill Banning Waterboarding,” March 8, 2008

______________

Washington Post:

“We do not torture.” — President Bush, Nov. 7, 2005

“Waterboarding has been used on only three detainees. . . . We used it against these three high-value detainees because of the circumstances of the time.” — CIA Director Michael V. Hayden,

(Feb. 5, 2008) “THE ADMISSION this week by CIA Director Michael V. Hayden that three terrorism suspects were subjected to waterboarding in 2002 and 2003 puts to rest any doubt about whether President Bush authorized torture.

“For centuries, civilized countries have considered waterboarding, or simulated drowning, to be torture. The United States rightly condemned as war criminals Japanese soldiers who employed the technique against U.S. personnel during World War II. It prosecuted U.S. military officers who waterboarded prisoners at the turn of the 20th century. The practice, which causes its victims to feel that they are about to die, is unquestionably cruel. Every administration prior to this one has judged it to be prohibited by U.S. law and treaty obligations. It is incontestably a blot on the reputation of this country and a breach of the very values we claim to want to export to the rest of the world.” — Editorial, Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2008

__________

Where is Ambrose when you need him? Some day the Church will again excommunicate cowardly, barbarian rulers. But we’ve got a long way to go. Conservative Christians are still of the weird dualistic mindset that says you must act like a Christian everywhere else except in civil office. Once you’re in office, Romans 13 magically kicks in, and you may freely torture your enemies, no need to love them, use evil to overcome evil, no soft Pauline solutions. Outside of office, you must heed the Sermon on the Mount, but in office, you have to disregard the Lord’s commands due to the toughness of terrorists. Insert conservative grunt here. Do we believe the Gospel or not?

“I cannot endure iniquity and
the sacred meeting….
When you spread you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
Even though you make many prayers,
I will not hear.
Your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves, make
yourselves clean;
Put away the evil of your
doings before My eyes.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Rebuke the oppressor.” — Isaiah 1:13ff.

“Your hands are full of blood.”

Doug Jones

See also: Waterboarding for God; Resignations of Guantanamo Military Prosecutors; Pelagian Conservatism; Goldberg’s Naivete About Empire; Conservatism’s Appreciation of Unitarianism; Dominating Conservatives