Torture Now Part of the American Soul?

George Monbiot writes an article in The Guardian for December 18, 2006 an insightful article about the American torture policy and how it has affected the prisoner, Mr. Padilla. It is a new kind of torture in which the "interrogators" literally drive the prisoners insane. It is not fun reading, but Americans, and especially Christians, ought to be absolutely outraged by this. The sad fact, however, is that more non-Christians are outraged than Christians.

Perhaps this is because many Christians have been taught that God indulges in the most horrific tortures imaginable as well upon sinners. Somehow this theology has translated into political and judicial ideology. Read the full article at:

http://www.alternet.org/rights/45613/

Monbiot's conclusion says this:

"If we were to judge the United States by its penal policies, we would perceive a strange beast: a Christian society that believes in neither forgiveness nor redemption.

"From this delightful experiment, US interrogators appear to have extracted a useful lesson: if you want to erase a man's mind, deprive him of contact with the rest of the world. This has nothing to do with obtaining information: torture of all kinds -- physical or mental -- produces the result that people will say anything to make it end. It is about power, and the thrilling discovery that in the right conditions one man's power over another is unlimited. It is an indulgence which turns its perpetrators into everything they claim to be confronting.

"President Bush maintains that he is fighting a war against threats to the 'values of civilized nations': terror, cruelty, barbarism and extremism. He asked his nation's interrogators to discover where these evils are hidden. They should congratulate themselves. They appear to have succeeded."