Mother Mary Rants

A letter to the editor of the St. Petersburg Times claims that on the subject of torture, the United States has only one choice: We can trust President Bush's leadership and "authorize torture," OR we allow "the destruction of our nation."

Leave aside the fact that torture does not work. Any evidence extracted by torture tends to be extremely unreliable. Just ask any of the millions of women whom the Inquisition tortured into admitting that they were witches before burning them at the stake. Just ask any of the employees of the CIA, the State Department, and the Pentagon whom the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal psychologically tortured into providing false "information" to justify invading Iraq.

Torture is both inhumane and immoral. The use of torture corrupts any institution that tolerates it. In a private e-mail to me, the letter-writer recommended that I be put into the sort of cage from which rats could eat my face; that way, I would grow to love Elder Brother, um, President Bush, as much as every good American ought to love him. George Orwell's 1984 appears to be required reading among neocons — not as a cautionary tale, but as an instruction manual.

Leave aside the fact that torture is deeply unethical — as unethical as many of the neocons' favorite tactics (duplicity, fear, corruption, propaganda, and government by libel are also big favorites).

Also leave aside the letter-writer's breathtaking faith in Mr. Bush's ability to avert disasters before they happen. (Doesn't anyone else remember an August 6, 2001 memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the U.S."? This was the first instance in which Mr. Bush preferred vacationing over governing the nation — alas, if only it were the last.)

The point of torture is to destroy the victim's belief that he or she has certain inalienable rights — privacy, intimacy, inviolability. The torturer invades and destroys the victim's physical and ultimately mental independence. Usually agonizing physical pain and the fear of death are accompanied by public humiliation, incessant repetition, depersonalization, and of course sadistic glee. Did it work at abu Ghraib? Has it worked for any of the minimum-of-two-dozen INNOCENT men who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay or one of our "black sites" for up to four years, with no end in sight? If you are reading this — do YOU feel any safer?

Torture is the interrogation technique of choice for totalitarian régimes, terrorist groups, and organized crime. Worse, the main point of torture is not to gain information (which is unreliable at best); the point of torture is to force acquiescence, and to spread terror among the Winston Smiths of our modern world.

The moral question is simple: Is the United States to be the only nation in the world that officially approves of cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of human beings? Do we really want to be numbered among totalitarian régimes, terrorist groups, and organized crime?

Do we really want the rest of the world to see no moral difference between the United States and al Qaeda, the Mafia, or the Nazis?

Mr. Bush likes to strut around in the emperor's clothing of Christian competence, so it becomes fair to ask: Whom would Jesus degrade, abuse, and torture?