NRCAT

The Washington Post today carried an article¹ covering an advertisement campaign launched today by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. The first paragraph of the published statement of conscience reads:

Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions hold dear. It degrades everyone involved --policy-makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation's most cherished ideals. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable.²

I immediately endorsed the statement; will you?

Our country apparently elected President Bush because he is a good man, strong in his convictions. When I learn that he issued a signing statement in response to the McCain Amendment:

"The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."³

then I have a hard time reconciling the good and strong. I think that he's either a good man, weak in his convictions, who is being taken advantage of by the people that have surrounded him, or I think he's a man with a broken moral compass who puts himself above the law, where the law is the writ of the people who the President is supposed to serve.

¹Cooperman, A ( 2006, June 13). Religious leaders urge U.S. to ban torture. The Washington Post, p. A04.

²http://www.nrcat.org/statement.asp