Religion in the CIA torture report - Torturing God Out of Jihadis

[Lucille]

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/torturing-god-out-of-jihadis/

Michael Peppard pulls something particularly horrifying out of the Senate torture report:

The Senate committee was supposed to believe that a cruelly tortured man had thanked his torturer for breaking his religious faith. It goes without saying that the Senate committee found, after scrutinizing over 6 million pages of documents, “no CIA records to support this testimony” (487 n. 2646).

During the same hearing, Sen. Nelson asked about Hayden’s plans, if he suspected al-Qa’ida was training people to resist such techniques. His answer is chilling.

DIRECTOR HAYDEN: “You recall the policy on which this is based, that we’re going to give him a burden that Allah says is too great for you to bear, so they can put the burden down.” (487)

The new report does not describe the many techniques of religiously-themed abuse that I compiled from ex-detainee memoirs and interviews in 2007-08, nor does it extend our knowledge from the 2009 report, which admitted techniques such as forced prostration before an idol shrine to generate “religious disgrace.”

But what Hayden’s comments do show is that using religion as a weapon in prolonged psychological warfare was an actual “policy” – not a result of agents gone rogue.

The goal was to create a burden so great that a person’s religious faith would be destroyed. Nothing could be further from our country’s founding principle.

Peppard, who teaches at Fordham, has been studying how the US used religious abuse as a weapon against Muslim detainees. See here, and see here.
[...]
But to take a captured prisoner, even one we can reasonably be certain has done evil things from religious motivation, and compel him to desecrate his religion, is to my Christian mind one of the most evil things that one human being can do to another. That the history of the Church shows Muslims have done this to Christians again and again and again does not make it right. It is always and everywhere a manifestation of utter barbarism. Again, consider the experience of Fr. George Calciu, a prisoner in the communist Pitesti prison camp in Romania:
[...]
Of course what the Romanian communists were after and what the CIA interrogators were after differs considerably. I’m not making a complete equivalence. But in both cases, they tried to compel a prisoner through torture to defile his faith in order to produce desired results. I’m a religious believer, and trust me, I would rather be raped a thousand times than tortured to the point of denying God or desecrating holy images or Scripture. Even though I do not share the faith of these Muslim detainees, what our government did to them is possibly most inhumane thing any man can do to another: to defile the image of God within their souls.

May God bring justice to those responsible for this abomination.

 

[jmdrake]

You know what I find interesting about all of this? Most right wing Christians believe there will come a day where "the antichrist" will try to force the to renounce their faith through torture. "Whatsoever ye would that man would do to you, do ye also unto them." And "Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap."

 

[Lucille]

It's just appalling and shameful, but not to the Narcissistic and hypocritical torture fanatics known as America's "Christian" right.

I guess Palin was right after all. Waterboarding really is how the CIA baptizes terrorists.

 

[jmdrake]

It's just appalling and shameful, but not to the Narcissistic and hypocritical torture fanatics known as America's "Christian" right.

I guess Palin was right after all. Waterboarding really is how the CIA baptizes terrorists.

Wow! http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...s-waterboarding-is-how-we-baptize-terrorists#

 

[moostraks]

Wow! http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...s-waterboarding-is-how-we-baptize-terrorists#

Missed that the first time, eh? Ya, that Palin is a real charmer, you betcha!!! I am at a loss with how narcissistic and self absorbed the "Christian" right is on this issue that they believe the appropriate tactic is not to vehemently oppose torture but think the argument should be to complain about its necessity and appropriateness all while complaining about being victims of liberal bias. It disgusts me!

 

[Christian Liberty]

You know what I find interesting about all of this? Most right wing Christians believe there will come a day where "the antichrist" will try to force the to renounce their faith through torture. "Whatsoever ye would that man would do to you, do ye also unto them." And "Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap."

Indeed.

I haven't figured out eschatology yet. Regardless of eschatology, though, there are Christians who are being tortured for their faith even today, in other countries. There's a small part of me that's just sad that when what goes around eventually comes around here, religious people on RPF (no matter what faith they are) are going to be punished along with the hypocrites...

Missed that the first time, eh? Ya, that Palin is a real charmer, you betcha!!! I am at a loss with how narcissistic and self absorbed the "Christian" right is on this issue that they believe the appropriate tactic is not to vehemently oppose torture but think the argument should be to complain about its necessity and appropriateness all while complaining about being victims of liberal bias. It disgusts me!

I'm disgusted too. And sort of speechless. I don't really know what to say. That "marxist nazi Muslim antichrist"* Obama is at least giving lip service to opposing torture** while the "Christian right" is all OK with it is kind of ironic to. Who's being more Christian on this issue?

*Mixing together various forms of hyperbole used by the "Christian Right."

**Yes, I know Obama is almost certainly lying. And yes, I know he's also by no means a peaceful person. But, I just find it ironic that the group of people who you would think would have the most compassion toward other human beings are the first to endorse monstrosities like this.

 

[Christian Liberty]

Just something to note:

Even Old Testament law never endorsed trying to force people to change their religious faith or torturing people to try to get them to do so. Its crazy how anti-religious statists mock religious people for believing the Old Testament, and then their "secular" government does something as horrible as this.

Again, the problem is statism, not religious devotion...

 

[VIDEODROME]

I'm not sure how secular our government has been recently, at least while under George W. Bush. Not sure about Obama.

 

[Christian Liberty]

I'm not sure how secular our government has been recently, at least while under George W. Bush. Not sure about Obama.

George W. Bush thinks people of any religion can go to heaven. Both Bush and Obama are secular-leaning universalists. Bush may have thought slightly more of the Bible than Obama (or claimed to) but neither actually looked to the Bible to try to figure out the difference between right and wrong as far as governmental policy goes.