Torture as a Tool of Freedom
According to the New York Times editorial Horrifying and Unnecessary, President Bush plans to veto a law that would require the all American intelligence services to submit to the restrictions on holding and interrogating prisoners in the United States Army Field Manual. If the President is doing this in the name of and for the safety of his fellow Americans, he must be stopped.
The editorial points out that there's no logical reason for this veto. Additionally, the President has no remaining moral authority or political capital left, having squandered it all with his curiously immoral, unchristian behavior; his propensity for picking and choosing which biblical injunctions are his guiding principles to suit his subjectivity; and his anti–intellectual bullheadedness. He has gone astray. Worse, he has led others astray.
It's good to protect things as precious as our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (none of which Mr. Bush has read lately) with a fence, but when the fence becomes more important than what it's protecting, moral distortion and disintegration are inevitable. The President has made it impossible for Americans to hold up their heads in pride. In the name of freedom, he's made Americans—ordered Americans—to be uncivilized barbarians. The terrorists have won.
Mr. President, "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
~Oliver Cromwell
Addendum, March 8, 2008: Thank you, Mr. President, for ignoring and eroding the Bill of Rights. Thank you for corroding America's reputation as the world's Beacon of Liberty.
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