Andrew Sullivan has been highlighting different aspects of the newly released bipartisan Levin-McCain reported which just scratches the surface of the disgrace and evil that the Bush administration became in the face of fear. There's nothing wrong with fear itself. There is something wrong when you allow it to destroy your moral compass. Here's a quote:
"My own view is that the American conservative movement's embrace or defense of torture was the moment its intellectual collapse became irrecoverable. When conservatism abandoned core values of American decency in favor of pure force, exemplified by torture techniques designed by Communists and Nazis, then it ceased to be conservative in the sense that Burke or Hayek or Oakeshott or Kirk would begin to understand."
As he points out, the techniques authorized, encouraged, and even ordered by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the gang were originally developed by the Nazis and the Communist Chinese. In fact, the very phrase "enhanced interrogation" is taken from Gestapo guidelines used to interrogate "terrorists, Communists, Marxists, saboteurs, members of the resistance movement, members of the Bible researcher sect, parachute agents, asocial persons, Polish or Soviet persons who refuse to work, and idlers." What is the only thing that all of these groups have in common? They give The State and the citizens thereof reasons for fear. The proposed penalty for the same crime then was death.
The question, as it relates to the lordship of Christ, is where is the church in all this? Why do we only have the ability to call out the evil in and of others, like the Sudanese and Rwandan genocidaires, the Nazis, the homosexuals, lazy welfare recipients, panhandlers and the like? How can we begin to see it in the causes we support?
No end, not national security, not safety, not peace of mind, not success, not the loss of civilization as we know it, not the downfall of America at the hands of anyone justifies us in perpetrating evil, or at the very least indirectly supporting it many layers removed from the crime through voices, votes and standing idly by while our agents commit egregious acts. The church, and when I say church, I mean the individuals within it. Talk to your friends, do the job the media won't and reveal facts. The Senate report, issued with no dissents from the committee members of either party, was ignored by the media but is now public record for anyone who has an ear.
Let's hold Obama's feet to the fire as relentless critics. If he ignores the problem, he is as guilty as the two travelers who passed by the broken man on the road before the arrival of the Samaritan. In a twist on the generally accepted meaning of the parable, I say that the Samaritan is coming and his name is Jesus. Woe to those who pass by evil.
What gives me hope is what gave Albert Schweitzer hope when he wrote:
"At the present time when violence, clothed in life, dominates the world more cruelly that it ever has before, I still remain convinced that truth, love, peaceableness, meekness, and kindness are the violence which can master all other violence. The world will be theirs as soon as ever a sufficient number of men with purity of heart, with strength, and with perseverance think and live out the thoughts of love and truth, of meekness and peaceableness."
-- The Light Within Us, p. 22
I'm not going to link to Andrew because he has been prolific in writing on the subject and one would not capture the scope of what we've turned a blind eye to. Glen Greenwald and Scott Horton have also investigated extensively into the subject.
