Catholic and Enjoying It!
“My view is absolutely clear: torture is wrong and shouldn’t be allowed, and people who torture should be apprehended, with the full force of law applied,” says Britain’s most senior ranking general — A Soldier’s View of Torture, Just War Principles.
One of my private hopes is that the Candidate of the Thing That Used to Be Conservatism secretly recognizes that, though torture is still hugely popular with the Base, it is stupid and counter-productive and was an aberration Bush/Cheney should never have capitulated to. In short, my hope is that, though he talks big about reinstating torture, he’s just doing it to please the mob but doesn’t intend to really do it since it’s been demonstrated to be not just evil, but stupid as well. And not just stupid for American intel efforts, stupid for the people who ordered it since some of them now are effectively international war criminals who might actually face personal consequences if they set foot on the wrong piece of soil.
Hard to say if my hopes are founded or not, but it remains a hope. It’s too bad that the Thing that Used to be Conservatism (you know, the Party of Life) is super-solidly committed to Torture as a basic Christian value now, such that its candidates have zero hope of nomination if they do not offer full-throated praise of it. But it may be that the GOP leadership, at any rate, does not share the Base’s commitment to torture, since it could land them in an international court should they make the mistake of visiting the wrong villa for summer vacation and get caught.
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