Does this reflect your own Christian values?

Question

The question assumes that you have Christian values. A US Army Field Manual revised last month bans "water boarding" as "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment". Senior Republican lawmakers, human rights groups and many experts agree. Republican Senator, John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham agree. Vice president Dick Cheney said in a interview that "the Bush administration doesn't regard water boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. It's a no brainer for me", Cheney said. It is the Bush administrations view that the president has the constitutional power to do whatever he deems necessary to fight terrorism." Cheney went on to say. Water boarding means holding a persons head under water or pouring water on a cloth or cellophane placed over the nose and mouth to simulate drowning until the subject agrees to talk or confess. Bush signed legislation last month that prohibits water boarding according to sponsors of the Military Commissions Act.
Also if your Son or your Daughter were to fall into the Iraqi resistance hands would you agree with the use of water boarding to get your child to make a confession?

jen, would you want your Son or Daughter subjected to this? ya kinda skipped that part. Nice dodge of the question. BTW, How would you know the person is in fact a terrorist? Do they have a number on them? some kind of mark?

Answer 1

When we do things as bad as the people we are fighting we lose our cause. We become them and right or wrong is lost. If our cause is just then we should not resort to these methods, human rights should be of up most importance to the people of the United States as we are the beacon of the free world. To resort to such tactics lowers our standards and our image in the rest of the world.

Answer 2

This is not christian values and again shows how the administration will say anything to get elected. To say they are Christians is a travesty. Vote, and keep voting out incumbents until we get a congress that will work for legal Americans. I'd say a lot more but the CIA and FBI would probably bring me in and we have no civil rights under this administration, unless you are illegal .
Any Christian that condones such practices, is a superficial Christian. Do they know that this was used by Hitler? Hitler thought he was justified in what he did too. Have we sunk so low that we are now no better than the Nazi's? Isn't our country supposed to be better than that? That's why countries adopted the Geneva Convention. Wake up people, either we are a moral country or we aren't. Even McCain who was a prisoner knows it is wrong. If we are at war, they are war prisoners. Splitting hairs to excuse inhuman treatment is still inexcusable.
Either we are better than the terrorists, or we are no better than they are. If we're no better than they are, we shouldn't even be fighting them.

Answer 3

The military is prohibited from using 'torture'. If the captured terrorist has information that could save lives they are turned over to the CIA, who progressively use harsher measures to obtain that life saving information. Since the enemy in this war are TERRORISTS in civilian clothing who do not follow the 'rules of war', I believe it is justified. Wasn't it Marsawi (sp?) who lasted 2 minutes (an eternity in water boarding) before giving up critical information on terrorist plots-which probably saved hundreds-perhaps thousands of lives?

Answer 4

As a Christian I have no problem with any recource the government/military condones necessary to get information from terrorists.
Of course I would not want my son or daughter to fall into the Iraqi resistance hands for any reason.
WHEN will the liberals wake up? You dont go holding hands and skipping through the park merrily with these people! They want to kill ALL of us! HELLO! So if we need to pour water over their noses covered in celephane to get them to tell us something, OK, do it.
What is the reason for singling out Christians to answer?

Answer 5

I understand getting the enemy to talk by any means necessary, however I do feel that the things you train your military to do does reflect your morals and values, be them christian or not. as far as would I agree to water boarding if my son or daughter became a P.O.W. of course not , that is my child, however, by joining the military risks like those come with the territory. you wouldn't become a firefighter and then complain about the smoke.

Answer 6

Regardless of all the bull violence can only be fought with violence , all diplomacy is saturated by threats of violence (we settle this now or I'll nuke your country)

If you could end war by killing one person would you do it ?

Then you are a violent person .

If you could save lives by threatening death would you do it ?

Then you are a violent person .

sometimes the ends justify the means and there is no right and wrong just wrongs of different values .

Answer 7

First, which US Army Field Manual was revised? There are hundreds of them. Please cite legitimate source for this claim.

Now, you seem to have failed to differentiate between Geneva-coverd POWs and non-Geneva protected illegal combatants. Legal combatants are protected from ill-treatment or aggressive interrogation techniques. Illegal combatants do not have as much protection.

As for waterboarding - it isn't torture by definition. It causes no permanent physical or psychological injury.

And one would only hope that the people we are fighting would use waterboarding, instead of cutting peoples' heads off. Or is cutting peoples' heads off OK with you?

Answer 8

I don't care how they get the information from the bad guys. The argument against these tactics is that we should not do anything bad to them so that they won't do bad things to us. Well I've got news for you... they have and will continue to bad things to us. That is their whole purpose in life. If you read the bible it does not say that you should just lay there and take the beating. In fact in many places it says just the opposite.

Answer 9

Well said. What about the torture of the soldier when they get caught with the enemy this is not recorded nor justified.

Answer 10

I am a christian and I don't have any problems with them trying to see what a terrorist knows by water boarding. Otherwise, they won't be talking.