The Beginning of the End for Authorized Torture

While Christianists are too busy crying about their outrage in regards to abortion and denying equal marriage rights to homosexuals, they are ignoring the Judiciary's fight against the immoral and reprehensible actions of the Bush administration's authorization of torture. How sad is it that these Christianists don't even confront the issue that is almost universally condemned as immoral and especially when salience of the issue is incredibly high.

These Christianists always declare that one is judged not only by what one does, but also by what one does not do. Well, their omission and silence in regards to this issue is deafening.

Here is a post discussing the issue of torture and its authorization by a distinguished and well-respected Constitutional law professor, Professor Wilson Huhn. (Disclaimer: Prof. Huhn is my current Con Law professor)

The Miami Herald reports that Col. Stephen Henley, a military judge at Guantanamo, has thrown out a confession that Afghan authorities obtained from Mohammed Jawad. Jawad is charged with the commission of a war crime for allegedly having thrown a grenade and wounding American soldiers in an Afghan bazaar in 2002. There was evidence that Afghan authorities drugged Jawad, a teenager, chained him to a wall, and threatened to kill him and his family unless he confessed to throwing
the grenade. There was also evidence that two other persons also confessed to throwing the same grenade, and that Jawad was subjected to sleep deprivation and other severe interrogation techniques in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo.
Section 948r of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 permits the introduction of statements obtained by cruel and inhuman treatment prior to 2005 so long as the statement is reliable and probative, but the law does not permit the introduction of evidence obtained by use of "torture." The United States government reportedly
argued that the interrogation of Jawad involved coercion but that it did not rise to the level of torture. However, Colonel Henley ruled that the death threats against Jawad and his family constituted torture and that the confession was therefore inadmissible. The constitutional issue that is presented by this case is whether "coerced confessions" are admissible in military trials under any circumstances. If the government appeals Colonel Henley's ruling it is possible that the Supreme Court may eventually resolve whether it is constitutional for the Military Commissions Act to allow any coerced confessions into evidence.
In my opinion, we should recall the principle that Justice Robert Jackson articulated in his opening statement at Nuremberg where he served as the lead prosecutor for the allies against the Nazi war criminals. He said:

"We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants
today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these
defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."

Not to invoke Godwin's Law, but the Nazi's used "enhanced interrogation techniques" and were convicted of war crimes. The only difference is that they called them "Verschärfte Vernehmung." And some people still wonder why we no longer have moral standing in this world...