more debate over interrogation guidelines

more debate over interrogation guidelines

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From the Boston Globe, September 18, 2006:

In the fight over rules for the interrogation and trials of terrorism suspects, there is a split — not so much between Republicans and Democrats or the White House and the Senate, but between leaders like President Bush with no combat experience and those like Colin Powell who know combat and want to maintain the Geneva Conventions as a protection for US troops. Powell prefers the bill before Congress sponsored by Republican Senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham, all of whom have considerable military experience. Their bill, which the Senate Armed Services Committee approved Thursday, has deep flaws of its own, but it is a better basis for legislation than Bush’s proposal to gut the Geneva Conventions.

The military has to take the long view because it knows that if the United States strays from the Geneva Conventions, other countries will, too. As McCain said yesterday on ABC-TV, “We are more exposed than any other nationality because we have more people all over the world.” The military also knows that harsh interrogations often yield false information from prisoners eager to say anything to win better treatment. One terrorism suspect, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, “confessed” knowledge of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq after the Central Intelligence Agency handed him over to Egyptian authorities. According to the recently released Senate report on prewar intelligence, Libi had made up the information to avoid cruel treatment by the Egyptians.

Neither Bush’s bill nor the Senate committee’s deserves passage as written. Each would strip the 400 or more detainees at Guantanamo of any right to appeal their cases to federal courts. Except for a handful of them, none has been charged with war crimes or terrorism. Some undoubtedly would present a threat if released and should be held longer, but others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of them deserve recourse to courts to challenge their continued detention.

At his press conference Friday, Bush challenged Powell’s statement that Bush’s redefinition of the Geneva Conventions would encourage the world to “doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.” Bush construed this to suggest a comparison between US behavior and that of “Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.” The proper comparison, though, is not with the conduct of terrorists but with the principles the United States has maintained in every war it has fought since adoption of the Geneva Conventions.

Those are the principles the Supreme Court upheld in June. Congress should follow suit by passing an amended version of the Senate committee bill that does not subject detainees to the limbo of Guantanamo with no access to the courts.

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new interrogation guidelines

new interrogation guidelines

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Yesterday the Pentagon released a set of revised guidelines for the interrogation of all detainees. It amounts to a formal acknowledgement that in the “war on terror” we have sometimes overstepped the boundaries of decency and humanity, and have not provided our field operatives a clear sense of what where those boundaries are.

This is a step in the right direction, a reaffirmation of our historic commitment to the rule of law and to the basic rights of all human beings. It’s about doing it right, not just about winning.

However, there are still gaping loopholes. The rules only cover Department of Defense officials on Department of Defense property. There are no prohibitions of secret detention facilities (indeed President Bush affirmed that such secret prisons will continue to be used), no legal oversight for these “unofficial” detention centers, and nothing to prevent government officials from transferring detainees to and from such facilities.

For more on the new guidelines, see the article by Josh White in the Washington Post: New Rules of Interrogation Forbid Use of Harsh Tactics

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a view through the trees

a view through the trees

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ocean view through the trees on Monhegan Island

I like this photograph.

It is different from most of my other Monhegan photos — no stunning cliffs rising from the sea, no waves exploding on the rocks guarding the shoreline, no colorful lilies or picturesque lighthouses or interesting people — just this view through the trees.

Is it a photograph of the sea or is the sea just the background? Is our attention drawn by the dead tree in the foreground or do we see past the tree? Is it the dark lines of the dead tree or the bold greens of the living trees or orange of the lichen-covered rocks, the expansive sea in the distance or the intimate path in the near corner, that makes this photograph beautiful?

It is all these things. It is the way all the pieces of the photograph “fit” together and don’t fit together. It is the juxtaposition of life and death, of soft and hard, of light and dark, of sharp and smooth, of intimacy and immensity, that makes this photograph engaging … and beautiful. It is beautiful because it shows something real, this particular piece of earth as it is, as it has become, not something put together or composed by the artist, but something already there. Here is the artistry … of God: death and life, immediacy and transcendence, something that exists wholly oblivious to and careless of me, and yet of which, when I am present and when I pay attention, I am a part.

This is what we are like, too — products of God’s artistry, a strange juxtaposition of the heavenly and the mundane, full of contradictions, but beautiful as we are, beautiful because we are, beautiful because we are from God.

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arctic national wildlife refuge under siege

arctic national wildlife refuge under siege

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Once again the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is under threat. Some people just don’t understand “No!” No, it is not worth it to us to add a few more gallons to our oil reserves if it means the sacrifice of this precious piece of wilderness.

a tank full of gas: $60
drilling a new oil well: $5 million
preserving the home of the caribou, the black bear, the moose, the Dall mountain sheep, the Gwich’in Indian: priceless

In the words of the our own government (from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife website):

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was established to preserve unique wildlife, wilderness and recreational values; to conserve caribou herds, polar bears, grizzly bears, muskox, dall sheep, wolves, snow geese, peregrine falcons, other migratory birds, dolly varden, and grayling; to fulfill international treaty obligations; to provide opportunities for continued subsistence uses; and to ensure necessary water quality and quantity.

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making sense, moving forward

making sense, moving forward

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We live in a world that is so different from the world of the generations that have preceded us. The pace of change is dizzying. The amount of accessible — unavoidably accessible! — information is overwhelming. We bear the burden of knowing too much, almost more than we can bear to know. It is not only the problems of family and community and region that weigh on our hearts, but the problems of a whole world: famine and disease and natural disaster, war and oppression and unabashed genocide, injustice and mistrust and entrenched hatred. We know so much about the world and about the people who fill it, so much more about so many more people, so many people so different from us as we are so different from them — different traditions, different dreams, different perceptions, different values, different beliefs.

How do we make sense of this world? How do we stretch minds and hearts to “fit” all the information, all the people, in a way that allows us to move forward with eyes and ears still open? As believers, how do we reconcile ourselves and our faith to diverging and even openly hostile points of view?

Some do it by holding tightly to received traditions, by clinging to a clearly defined spiritual calculus that distinguishes between those who are right and those who are wrong, by subscribing to a parochial religious worldview that leaves most of humanity on the outside. In the face of a world full of questions, these folks survive by adopting a faith full of ready answers.

Others do it by redefining “truth” and “righteousness” and “salvation:” what matters is what is true for you, what is right is what allows us to co-exist, salvation is avoidance of conflict. In the face of a world full of questions, these folks survive by believing there really aren’t any answers.

But is there a third option? Is there a way for believers other than strict fundamentalism or uncritical pluralism? Can we make sense of this world without ignoring the majority of the facts? Can we move forward without abandoning our loyalty to a personal God? We need a third way, because the church is being torn apart, dangerously polarized, torn apart by people who are scared, scared of losing their faith, scared of losing their lives, polarized by people scared of obsolescence, scared of irrelevance, scared of being marginalized, scared of losing their souls.

I believe there is a third way. The first two ways have one important feature in common: fear … fear of losing, fear of criticism, fear of being wrong, fear of being irrelevant, fear of the daunting and dizzying and befuddling and overwhelming world in which we live! And the natural response to fear is … fight or flight! Taking control of a situation that is out of control by removing myself or by arming myself. “Solving” the threatening situation by taking a unilateral course of action. But, as believers, when we act unilaterally, when we “take control” — one way or another, we leave God out. We discover a third way when we let God in, when we listen — really listen — to God, instead of deciding for ourselves what we must do to survive and to “protect” the faith!

Perfect love drives out fear.

Love is the third way! Loving God with all your soul and all your mind and all your strength … and loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

God is not a cipher! God is not whatever we think God is or whatever we want God to be! God is a particular being, with a distinctive character and distinctive intentions. It is possible for us to be right about what we think we know of God, and it is possble for us to be utterly wrong about what we think we know of God! We must seek God, listen to God, wait for God, not pretend we already know exactly what God wants, or that we can never know what God wants. Our task is not to use God, as a war club or a slogan, but to love God.

In the same way, your neighbor is not a cipher, but a person, a person who deserves to be loved. Your primary task is not to defeat your neighbor, protect yourself from your neighbor, convert your neighbor, enlighten your neighbor, but to love your neighbor. Love your neighbor!

Don’t be scared! Love God and trust God to love you. In the face of a world full of questions, you don’t have to have all the answers … but you know there are answers!

You don’t have to fight or run away. You can move forward, with confidence in God, with hope for the future, with readiness to love your neighbor who is so very different from you, but equally loved by God. As believers, we take our cue from God, the God revealed in Jesus Christ, a God of love, a God of mercy, a God of grace. We love, we show mercy, we extend grace.

We don’t need to take control. We leave that to God. We know our job …

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a sensible ruling

a sensible ruling

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An excerpt from the decision handed down by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor declaring the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program unconstitutional:

“Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. … It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of … those liberties … which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.”

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our nation’s greatness?

our nation’s greatness?

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From an article by R. Jeffrey Smith in the Washington Post, August 9, 2006: The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments …

“People have gotten worried, thinking that it’s quite likely they might be under a microscope,” said a U.S. official. Foreigners are using accusations of unlawful U.S. behavior as a way to rein in American power, the official said, and the amendments are partly meant to fend this off.

They should be under a microscope! Power secured at the expense of human dignity is a corrupting, degrading power. Our nation’s greatness (what greatness there is) is its legacy of putting right before might, of showing the world another way, a way of respect for the rule of law and of respect for human rights, for the rights of all human beings.

When self-preservation and self-aggrandizement and consolidation of power become our top priorities, we are not great at all, but a poor and miserable nation, with nothing of value to offer the rest of the world. The welfare of humanity as a whole demands that we be scrutinized and that our power be reined in.

It is our duty as citizens of this nation to take the lead, to be aware of what our government is doing, and to let our leaders know in no uncertain terms what sort of greatness we want!

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