You’re The Decider
Vote Nov. 7
 
 
 
I do like this page! (Can't help but notice, however, that although there is a tiny bit of red, it is mostly blue!)
    On torture: I think I understand most of the issues (having once enlisted),
    however, it seems to me a little bit of a stretch
 to compare our questioning with that of the throat-slitters and 
beating people's feet with lead pipes
and a whole range of very nasty techniques.
    Anyway, I'm 100% in favor of blogging.
More later,
dad
 
It’s true, for the most part, we aren’t the bad guy. But that’s because these methods are illegal. Take the above picture for instance. He was killed by OGA (Other Governmental Authority). If the bills pass which the Republicans are pushing, then the US military will be expected to do the same. And it’s just wrong. And shouldn’t be legal. Because once you legalize it, people will do more of it, and more mistakes will be made.
Mistakes like Maher Arar, who was sent by our Attorney General to Syria on the basis of testimony extracted by torture. It’s completely unreliable, and forced and innocent man, a man who was not able to question his detention, to live ten months in these conditions:
Arar calls the cell a “grave.” It is three feet wide, six feet deep and seven feet high. It has a metal door, with a small opening which does not let in light because of a piece of metal on the outside for sliding things into the cell. There is a one by two foot opening in the ceiling with iron bars. This opening is below another ceiling and lets in just a tiny shaft of light. Cats urinate through the ceiling traps of these cells, often onto the prisoners. Rats wander there too.
 
And we should promote our system of government by offering its protections to whomever we sweep up. All 14,000 of them, instead of living in limbo. I can imagine that maybe you need to put some people somewhere for five weeks, or maybe even five months, and maybe, in war, you wouldn’t try them. But some people have been held by the US for five years.
 
At least Clinton and Janet Reno were able to prosecute and convict those who committed the world trade center bombing of 1993.
 
And the whole point is, we should maintain the moral high ground. Of course our methods should not be comparable to throat-slitters and foot-beaters. But we make mistakes, and we shouldn’t legalize our mistakes.
 
 
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Dad has questions
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of the Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust.
--Matthew 5:44-45
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
--John 13:34
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
--John 14:15