Saturday, March 18, 2006

Baghdad Burning

Stay the course? You're doing a heckova job. . .

This is a great blog to read to gain a perspective on life in Baghbad.

Baghdad Burning: "I don’t think anyone imagined three years ago that things could be quite this bad today. The last few weeks have been ridden with tension. I’m so tired of it all- we’re all tired.

Three years and the electricity is worse than ever. The security situation has gone from bad to worse. The country feels like it’s on the brink of chaos once more- but a pre-planned, pre-fabricated chaos being led by religious militias and zealots.

School, college and work have been on again, off again affairs. It seems for every two days of work/school, there are five days of sitting at home waiting for the situation to improve. Right now college and school are on hold because the “arba3eeniya” or the “40th Day” is coming up- more black and green flags, mobs of men in black and latmiyas. We were told the children should try going back to school next Wednesday. I say “try” because prior to the much-awaited parliamentary meeting a couple of days ago, schools were out. After the Samarra mosque bombing, schools were out. The children have been at home this year more than they’ve been in school.

I’m especially worried about the Arba3eeniya this year. I’m worried we’ll see more of what happened to the Askari mosque in Samarra. Most Iraqis seem to agree that the whole thing was set up by those who had most to gain by driving Iraqis apart.

I’m sitting here trying to think what makes this year, 2006, so much worse than 2005 or 2004. It’s not the outward differences- things such as electricity, water, dilapidated buildings, broken streets and ugly concrete security walls. Those things are disturbing, but they are fixable. Iraqis have proved again and again that countries can be rebuilt. No- it’s not the obvious that fills us with foreboding.

The real fear is the mentality of so many people lately- the rift that seems to have worked it’s way through the very heart of the country, dividing people. It’s disheartening to talk to acquaintances- sophisticated, civilized people- and hear h"

Saturday, March 04, 2006

5 Reasons Torture is always Wrong - Christianity Today Magazine

5 Reasons Torture is always Wrong - Christianity Today Magazine: "

Home > Christianity Today Magazine > Hot Issues > Social Justice

Christianity Today, February 2006

5 Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong
And why there should be no exceptions.
by David P. Gushee | posted 01/27/2006 09:45 a.m.


• Related articles and links

'Three Marines in Mahmudiya used an electric transformer, forcing a detainee to 'dance' as the electricity coursed through him.'
International Committee of the Red Cross, February 2004


A former Iraqi general 'died of asphyxiation after being stuffed head-first into a sleeping bag … at an American base in Al Asad.'
The New York Times, October 23, 2005


'Al-Qatani was forced to perform dog tricks on a leash, was straddled by a female interrogator, forced to dance with a male interrogator, told that his mother and sister were whores, forced to wear a woman's bra and thong on his head during interrogation, and subjected to an unmuzzled dog to scare him.'
Newsweek, November 21, 2005

The word 'torture,' tellingly, comes from the Latin torquere, to twist. Stine Amris and Julio G. Arenas, who have done extensive studies on the effects of torture, define it as 'the infliction of severe pain (whether physical or psychological) by a perpetrator who acts purposefully and on behalf of the state' (italics in original).

The debate in our nation today concerns what measures can legitimately be taken to extract information from prisoners held by us in the 'war on terror' and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As such, it is a debate about the proper use of government power in a liberal democracy. Can that power ever rightly extend to the use of any form of torture?

Few people disagree that a liberal democracy has the right and responsibility to take prisoners and interrogate them during a war or police action. This is part of the government's biblical mandate in Romans 13:1-7, a mandate to deter violations of peace and justi"