Words mean things...

Has a post that lists what has been said by conservative pundits about the whole torture thing that happened at Abu Ghraib. Including a "conservative christian viewpoint" wherein "Bush apologizing is like FDR apologizing to Hitler." This self identified christian also writes "I said it loudly and plainly and I'll say it as often as I need to: If humiliation AND torture will break these terrorists and make them give up their higher ups and other vermin who like to plant roadside bombs to kill Americans, then do it. We're going to politically correct ourselves into another September 11, and God help us if someone we love gets killed the next time....And let me be clear about my premise. The fact that military folks higher up in the chain of command may have ordered the "torture" doesn't change my argument at all. I still support it to extract information from an enemy of war."

Uhhh.

What's christian about this sentiment? nothing. But don't think appealing the whole Christian agape and forgiveness thing (i.e. calling them hypocrites) would at all work (c.f. this exegesis on turning the other cheek or self-defense for christians).

Personally, I think the humiliation AND torture (i.e. the causing of suffering to further one's own agenda) in the form of US foreign state policy was the originating cause of 9/11...I don't think more of it will really help much... but don't take it on my account, check out this flash movie hosted at jihadunspun.com, it sends chills down my spine.*

You should also check out the Village Voice piece (via Pylduck) about the gendered element of this whole scandal thing. Why are we obsessed with the chick who flashed two thumbs up in the torture pictures and not the many many more men who are also featured in the pictures?

*I have been told that many islamic activists believe that jihadunspun is actually a CIA site that monitors dissenters. How likely this is... I don't know. But, I read Clandestine Radio Broadcasting: a study of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary electronic communication earlier this semester to get a sense of what goes on in non-commercial applications of radio technology. The authors write in a section about CIA operations involving the spread of misinformation through the use of clandestine radio broadcasts: "This was not the first time that information fabricated by the CIA found its way into the U.S. Press. [ed. referring to CIA broadcasts during the Iranian revolution that were picked up by the New York Times and the Cleveland Press] During the Cultural Revolution in China, the CIA operated clandestine radio stations on Taiwan that claimed to broadcast from within the People's Republic of China. The intent of the stations and other covert propaganda was to increase turmoil within China, which at the time was perceived as an enemy of the United States. The clandestine stations broadcast criticism of the Red Guards and their radical supporters in the government, hoping to rekindle the extreme violence that had been observed in the Cultural Revolution a year earlier. This covert CIA operation was extremely successful in concealing its true identity. Not only did many mainlanders believe that the broadcasts were of Chinese origin, but so did the U.S. press, academics, State department analysts, and other parts of the U.S. intelligence community, who were never informed that the CIA was behind the operation... Thus over an extended period of time, analysts of developments in China and of Chinese-American relations within the American government have had their perceptions distorted by a lack of knowledge of American covert interference in the affairs of the People's Republic of China."