– Do Christians believe it okay to simulate drowning?

– Do Christians believe it okay, as in the case of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, to keep a man awake for fifty-five days, blasted with ice-cold water and electricity until he is delusional, entering hypothermia, dying…only to have a medical professional who took the Hippocratic oath, inject him with saline and bring him back to life just so he can be given back to his captives for more? Is this okay for your government, or a doctor to engage in, let alone a Christian?

Apparently Rev. Richard Cizik doesn’t think so, “As Evangelical Christians, our recognition of moral dignity is fundamental and non-negotiable, even in time of conflict and war.”

Nope, Richard ain’t cool with that and I remember a time when the US government (at least on paper) wasn’t either. Course, much has changed in the past ten years. We got two less towers and we got Jack Bauer. We got Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. We got a whole line of right-wingers and Democrats who would have you believe they’d line up, pay sizable sums for the opportunity to hook up a detainee to a few electrodes and turn on the electricity. Their reasoning is simple: time of war, man and they love their country, damnit, and if you did, really did…your finger’d be on the switch too.

How about another victim Rev. Cizik describes, Alyssa Peterson, one of the first female fatalities in Iraq. She was a soldier and devout Mormon who committed suicide rather than participate in any more of these brutal interrogations. What might our favorite radio commentators say about Alyssa? We should take stock of our morality as a country, look at the direction we’ve gone? Perhaps, or they might enter into a lengthy, self serving tirade using Alyssa as reason why women shouldn’t be allowed in combat situations.

Genetics, good sir…and gender, but probably they’d never mention it at all.

There’s little place in this country for torture; it’s been talked of by former CIA investigators as a waste of time when trying to extract information; it lowers the moral vision of this country and is ethically wrong, unless being used on politicians to get more help to the Gulf of Mexico, or on radio commentators to extract a moment of silence…or that crisis client who waits until my ten hour shift is almost over before he decides to quit drinking, at six am, blowing a .320 blood/alcohol level…but he really means it this time, man.

So I go to the hospital to talk to the guy, and still don’t believe in torture and I’m not even a Christian…but GW was, so was Gonzales and Cheney and most of the other people who entertained the moral flexibility to turn our country’s policy down this road, hell – all these torture, I mean Enhanced Interrogation Technique advocates, seem to be Christians, at least when the microphone’s on so what gives?

Read the article by Rev Civik, and his call to establish a Commission of Inquiry to Investigate these Enhanced  (torture) Interrogation Techniques, so as to remove them from the fabric of this country. Read on but remember…BP officials aren’t really people, so to them this article doesn’t apply. BP is still fair game, especially Tony Hayward.

Can Christians Live With Torture?

Sleep well, good night.