Hey, do those ethics classes include anything about torture?
Conservative and fundamentalist Christians scorn moral relativism when it comes to personal behavior. Tolerance for criminal behavior is not tempered by any namby-pamby thinking about racial prejudice or class differentiation. I think it is safe to say that the Bush inner circle professes this brand of Christianity.
The reason for the Iraqi war that finally 'stuck' was our moral imperative to bring freedom and democracy to the downtrodden, oppressed Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. If you are selling the war on this basis and you truly believe that you are on the side of the angels, then why in God's name can you justify TORTURE to achieve the shining city on an Iraqi hill?
Unbelievably, Cheney and Bush stick to their tortorous guns on the torture issue, despite an overwhelming majority of Senators who voted to include an anti-torture amendment to the defense bill.
To put it bluntly, where in HELL is the Christianity in THAT?
From an article in MSNBC by Fareed Zakaria:
I get frustrated when people attack Christianity because of all the evil that men have done in the name of Christianity. The essence of Christianity transcends the pettiness and the meanness of mankind. Attacking the Bush gang is no more attacking coservatism and morality than trying to belittle Christianity based on the Spanish Inquisition.
It's past time to quit equating morality and Christian virtue with the actions of this administration.
The reason for the Iraqi war that finally 'stuck' was our moral imperative to bring freedom and democracy to the downtrodden, oppressed Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. If you are selling the war on this basis and you truly believe that you are on the side of the angels, then why in God's name can you justify TORTURE to achieve the shining city on an Iraqi hill?
Unbelievably, Cheney and Bush stick to their tortorous guns on the torture issue, despite an overwhelming majority of Senators who voted to include an anti-torture amendment to the defense bill.
To put it bluntly, where in HELL is the Christianity in THAT?
From an article in MSNBC by Fareed Zakaria:
During the past few months, declassified documents and testimony from Army officers make abundantly clear that torture and abuse of prisoners is something that has become quite widespread since 9/11. The most recent evidence comes from autopsies of 44 prisoners who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in U.S. custody. Most died under circumstances that suggest torture. The reports use words like "strangulation," "asphyxiation" and "blunt force injuries." Even the "natural" deaths were caused by "Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular disease"—in other words, sudden heart attacks.
Sen. John McCain has proposed making absolutely clear in law that the United States does not permit the torture of prisoners—returning America to the position it had taken for five decades. McCain's amendment, endorsed by Colin Powell, passed the Senate last month by 90 to 9 in a stunning rebuke of administration policy. But Republicans in the House are trying to kill it. Vice President Cheney is making great exertions to gut it with loopholes. The White House has threatened to veto the entire defense budget, to which McCain's proposal was originally attached, unless his ban is removed. White House spokesmen don't answer questions about the bill plainly, and Cheney simply refuses to explain his views at all. (As the writer Andrew Sullivan has noted, someone needs to remind the vice president that he is an elected and accountable public servant, not a monarch.)
I get frustrated when people attack Christianity because of all the evil that men have done in the name of Christianity. The essence of Christianity transcends the pettiness and the meanness of mankind. Attacking the Bush gang is no more attacking coservatism and morality than trying to belittle Christianity based on the Spanish Inquisition.
It's past time to quit equating morality and Christian virtue with the actions of this administration.
