The Beatitudes Society | Strengthening the progressive Christian network for justice, compassion, & peace

Zeitgeist 26.0: Living. Being.

Submitted by Alex Carpenter on May 25, 2007 - 7:32pm.

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(World)

Here's a pretty revealing one-on-one interview of George Bush on his approach to extracting information from people. It's interesting to see this pattern emerging, evident in the press conference this week as well in which President Bush names the journalist's family as threatened unless we continue to torture human beings or continue the fight in Iraq - a practice that experts (not lawyers) say doesn't actually provide good intelligence. Good intelligence - like WMDs or al Qaeda in Iraq - hmm, it seems that we might want to recheck our methods.

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(America)

The Christian Century "Theolog" notes:
News services carried stories in early May about a Pentagon study that found many of the U.S. Marines and soldiers in Iraq would support torture in attempts to get strategic information and would not report on a comrade for killing or wounding civilians. General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, reminded service members that keeping high moral values “distinguishes us from our enemy” and is vital to winning support among Iraqis.

The study showed increasing mental health problems for troops on extended or multiple deployments. More than one-third of soldiers and marines believed that torture should be allowed to get information about insurgents or if it might save U.S. lives. Only 40 percent of U.S. Marines and 55 percent of soldiers said they would report a comrade for killing or injuring an innocent Iraqi.
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(Community)

Thanks to Real Time with Bill Maher, this clip from the Republican debate reveals a troubling trend in America. This country was founded on the principle of religious freedom in an historical moment when Catholics and varieties of Protestantism were employing terrorism and torture to defend their communities. (See Guy Fawkes, the Separatists, the Puritans, Bloody Mary, Fox's book of Martyrs and the Spanish Inquisition.) Just as these religious groups learned to find alternative methods of will-to-power through dialogue and religious tolerance, so too will the fearful in our day; but only if we refrain from inflaming fears and "enhancing" our interrogation techniques.

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