Fifty Thousand CAEI Combox Conversations, Condensed

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Speaking of which, the two prize-winning responses to yesterday’s post concerning the CIA threats to murder children and rape family members have to go to the guy who wants to pin a medal on our valiant torturers and, of course, the guy who can see only one alternative to threatening the lives of innocent women and children: abandoning all interrogation entirely. Slightly less appalling is the guy who is at least vaguely cognizant that the Church might have some input here, although his recognition of that fact does not keep him from making a statement 180 degrees counter to what Holy Church actually says in Veritatis Splendor, namely that torture *is* intrinsically immoral.

For those who are new here and unaware of the loooooooong history of my duel with attempts by sundry Catholics to square Bush/Cheney torture policies with the circle of Catholic teaching, let me save you a lot of work by just referring you to my articles (here and here) describing the various sophistries, lies and twaddle that are typically trotted out in order to achieve this end.

In the second article, I predicted what anybody with even a little imagination could foresee: that once you open Pandora’s box to torturing people “purely for information” then efficiency dictates that you will threaten to torture (and, of course, really torture) their loved ones. That’s because psychological torture depends on being able to call your victim’s bluff. If you threaten, but do not follow through, you will lose your advantage. Some of my readers are saying that threats to kill children and rape women are a shining adornment to the honor of our country, just so long as we don’t actually follow through. Such people are, ‘ow you say?, moral idiots who, if they are Catholic, need to get to confession.

Since when did Americans, much less American Catholics, become such craven cowards that they defend this sort of filth? Still more, when did they become such fools as not to see the grave danger they place their own families in a rapidly de-christianizing culture?