Letter: Defender of torture is flat wrong

• Published: Jul 6, 2009 - Page: 4B

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This is written in response to “Enhanced interrogation defended,” submitted by Mr. Ward H. Oliver (The Advocate, June 27).

Contrary to the lengthy rationale to legalize torture and any expedient justifications to torture the devil himself, there is simply no defense for torture. Making it legal doesn’t make it right.

That Mr. Oliver “fail(s) to see the moral high ground if we do not allow our protectors to use these enhanced interrogation techniques to gather vital information” is hardly justification for advocating that we side with evil.

How many millions died before and during World War II because Adolf Hitler’s High Court of Justice made it legal to torture and/or kill Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and anyone else deemed subhuman or not worthy of justice?

Not that long ago, many of the arguments in his letter were used by Salem’s “protectors” to dunk witches (i.e., an earlier form of waterboarding) and to have black people whipped or lynched. Hadn’t these “enhanced techniques” also been made legal during those eras ... and more so, even recommended by their version of “our protectors”?

Once overstepped, the line which allows our protectors “to break bones, burn bodies,” ... or even murder, is frighteningly near.

In addition, Mr. Oliver stooped to besmirching the honor of our predecessors by claiming: “ ... we have always used ‘enhanced techniques,’ including real torture, in the past.”

I’ll grant that was true, but it was eventually deemed illegal; and those practicing such evil practices expected to be punished (unlike certain ex-presidents and their smooth-talkin’ enablers).

Permit me to paraphrase Gen. George Washington when officially ordering that torture not be used on captured Redcoats (or even spies):

We are fighting for justice as well as our freedom. If we resort to such tactics we are no better than our enemy and do not deserve victory.

It’s hard to decide which is worse, those who actually do the torture or those who attempt to make it legal.

I’m a 24/7, gun totin’, Bible thumpin’, pro-Constitution zealot, who is slightly to the right of Attila the Hun when it comes to survival instincts, and definitely no liberal. In the past, I have agreed with Mr. Oliver on many things, but this time he’s flat wrong.

Put simply, if we wouldn’t want them doing it to our grandmothers, “our protectors” shouldn’t be doing it to anyone.