Torture...Part 2

“Torture Endorsed, Torture Denied” is a descriptive essay written by Marjorie Cohn. The third person article is formally dictated using a pragmatic and pessimistic tone. Cohn uses alliteration in the sentence “Water boarding is largely considered a torture technique.” Personification is used in the phrase “You’re not going to let me lose face on this, are you?” Cohn quotes Rockefeller, who uses metaphor by stating, in response to George Bush’s interrogation methods, “I’m tired of these games.”

“Donald Rumsfeld approved interrogation methods that included the use of dogs, hooding, stress positions, isolation for up to 30 days, 20-hour interrogations, deprivation of light and sound, and water boarding.” What a grotesque measure to ensure freedom. “Torture is a war crime. Those who commit or order torture can be convicted under the U.S. War Crimes Statute.” This is a staggering quote because it furnishes convicts from the way convicts are treated.

Torture testifies that the war in Iraq is a war of American self-interest, not a war for the interest of Iraqi people. Jesus Christ, God himself, had a lot to say about self-interest. If America wants to take the moral high ground internationally, they must avidly try to live lives that are modelled by the life and scripture of Jesus Christ. By modelling political policies after Christ’s teaching, they would not act imperialistically; rather they would act sacrificially for the good of other people and other countries. This is the only way terrorism from al-Qaeda can be subverted; by winning over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population.

Marjorie Cohn’s message is that torture is an ineffective method of gaining information, George W. Bush is in a perpetual state of lying to the American people, and that councils ought to be set up that investigate and prosecute those involved in torturing prisoners in U.S. custody.

“How terrible it will be for you who get rich by unjust means! You believe your wealth will buy security, putting your families beyond the reach of danger. But by the murders you committed, you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives. The very stones in the walls of your houses cry out against you, and the beams in the ceilings echo the complaint. How terrible it will be for you who build cities with money gained by murder and corruption! Has not the Lord Almighty promised that the wealth of nations will turn to ashes? They work so hard, but all in vain! For the time will come when all the earth will be filled, as the waters fill the sea, with an awareness of the glory of the Lord.”

-Habakkuk 2:9-14 (The New Living Translation)