George W. Bush has said that Jesus Christ saved his soul. He is mistaken.
On March 8, 2008, Bush used his veto power to kill a bill that was intended to make it illegal for the CIA to use torture to obtain information from detainees. Let’s put this clearly: Bush used his executive power to affirm the right of government agents to use sexual humiliation, religious degradation, mock executions, and simulated drowning on human beings. Forget “terrorists”, forget “enemy combatants”, forget “stateless actors”, forget that bullshit wordplay: Bush believes that some human beings should be allowed to torture other human beings and get away with it. That is how the situation stands for the leader of our nation, Americans. Shame on him and permanent shame on us.
Bush does not remember what a human being is, if he ever knew. He does NOT believe that all people have fundamental human rights. He does NOT believe that all humans are created equally. He does NOT believe that all humans should be treated with dignity. He does not have love in his heart. He has not been saved by Jesus Christ, the prince of peace.
Of course, as a moment of sane reflection will make clear, information obtained through torture is meaningless. It could not be used as evidence in a civil court and it is inherently unreliable because a tortured person will say whatever their torturer wants to hear. And, further, the use of torture destroys America’s reputation in the world, sullies our relationships with our allies, violates long-standing international treaties, breaks important international law and aids the recruitment goals of terrorist organizations.
But even if torture were useful it still would be fundamentally perverse. The use of torture denies the humanity of both the tortured and the torturer. For Bush to use his executive power both to allow this activity to occur and, even more, to prevent the will of the legislature to stop it, exposes the dark emptiness at the heart of Bush’s policies.
Jesus Christ can’t help you anymore, Mr. President. You have no more soul to save.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Matt Bachman // Mar 26, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I’m not going to harp on your discontent concerning Bush. However, I have to inform you that Bush has done more to mend the Israel/Palestine conflict than has any other president, especially Clinton.
Given that Bush has gotten the consent of both Lybia and North Korea, I do think that Bush deserves a lot of credit.
That said, torture is downright nasty; I support your thesis. Thanks for the article.
2 Matt Bachman // Mar 26, 2008 at 7:44 pm
A quick comment about the following sentence: “Shame on him and permanent shame on us.”
Could I have seen the future back in ‘00 or ‘04? I believe that I am misconstruing your statement somehow. What do you mean by this?
3 nate // Mar 28, 2008 at 3:13 pm
The “shame on us” is not just that Bush is the leader of our nation and that WE are our nation - though this is thoroughly shameful - but also that we have given our tacit, but functional, support to the president’s policies, including his stance on the use of torture, by continuing to pay our taxes and by participating in the smooth functioning of daily civic life. The power of the government is a gift from the governed. People are free to withhold compliance from the government and deprive the government of its power and we have demonstrably not done that. That, in my mind, is our - my - participation in the disgusting offenses of our current government and that is the source of our shame.
4 nate // Mar 29, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Matt, going back to your first comment, what did you mean about Bush mending the Israel/Palestine conflict? It seems to me that it is exactly the opposite. Are you referring to Bush’s recent mideast peace conference? Wasn’t the conference made irrelevant by the exclusion of Hamas, which is one of the only two political organizations in a position to directly influence the state of Israel/Palestine relations?
5 Matt Bachman // Mar 29, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Are you saying that Hamas should be incorporated in peace talks?
I retract my comment about the Israel/Palestine conflict; it’s outside of my expertise, and I can’t remember what I was going for with that anyway.
6 Matt Bachman // Mar 29, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Vaguely related article to both this article and Hamas: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/26/wgaza126.xml
7 Matt Bachman // Mar 30, 2008 at 1:54 am
I can’t seem to settle on what I want to say, probably from internal turmoil in my personal life. I apologize.
I like your article, but I’m uninterested in a debate about it’s merits vs. faults. I’m not knowledgeable enough to debate these issues, but I thank you for your concern over my comments.
8 Aviv L. // May 28, 2008 at 10:45 pm
The comment, “Shame on him and permanent shame on us”, also caught my eye. The same day as I saw this editorial, I finished reading a fascinating book, “Achieving Our Country,” by the late philosopher Richard Rorty. In it, he argues for a return from a spectatorial, cynical, cultural (as opposed to political) academic left to an older tradition of the left – participatory, hopeful and pragmatic, focused on specific pieces of legislation. He brings John Dewey and Walt Whitman as exemplars of this “traditional” left. The above quote from the editorial reminded me of the following, in Rorty: “…nothing a nation has done should make it impossible for a constitutional democracy to regain self-respect. To say that certain acts *do* [italics] make this impossible is to abandon the secular, antiauthoritarian vocabulary of shared social hope in favor of the vocabulary which Whitman and Dewey abhorred: a vocabulary built around the notion of sin” (32).
I do sense such a notion of sin being thrown around, at least implicitly, in high volume during these Bush years. I also sense a generous willingness to renounce faith in or respect for our country (which Rorty describes as “a necessary condition for [national] self-improvement” in the first sentence of his book). This publication, by its posture and focus, is certainly committed and involved in our pubic life. Nonetheless, food for political thought.
9 Aviv L. // May 28, 2008 at 11:07 pm
P.s. Re. the Mideast: Contrary to the hopes (or wishful thinking) of some, being in a position of power has failed to moderate Hamas by one iota. They remain implacably committed to Israel’s destruction, in word and in deed - to the point that I literally cannot imagine a universe in which they are more moderate. If they won’t budge, won’t verbally accept Israel’s right to exist, what is one to do?
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