A conservative radio host gets waterboarded, thinking he’ll prove it’s not torture—and barely lasts five seconds. His instant conclusion: this is obviously torture. (Prediction: some far-right apologist is going to say this doesn’t count because the host had been scarred by a childhood near-drowning experience.)
It’s outrageous that some conservatives, and especially Christians, continue to claim that waterboarding is not torture. Then they insist that the torture of suspected terrorists is justified, even mandated, by the threat they pose. They never admit that these are mutually exclusive arguments, a sure sign they’re just making excuses for what Bush and Cheney have already done.
The fact that we, as a country, are debating torture as though it were a morally ambiguous issue just saddens me. If being a follower of Jesus—who said we are measured by how we treat our enemies, not our friends—means anything, it means that we should stand together against such despicable things.
