Have Bush and his supporters gone crazy?

This is certainly a legitimate question. Frankly, I'm completely blown away by Bush's desire to permit torture by the CIA. And, yes, I will call it "torture". Bush has insisted on calling it "alternative interrogation" techniques. However, I doubt that John McCain would have referred to his treatment by the North Vietnamese with such neutral terms. "Torture" by any other name is just as horrible and morally repugnant. Therefore, regardless of how you term it, let's just say that, among other techniques, waterboarding violates the Geneva Convention (which we have signed). There are at least four major reasons for opposing torture. Here they are:

First, torture does not produce reliable confessions from prisoners. Bush's one and only argument for permitting torture has been that confessions elicited from tortured prisoners has thwarted attacks. The reality is, though, that torture produces a mountain of information -- most of it of very little use. (As an example, read this editorial by the Post. A Canadian man was taken by American authorities and sent to Syria, where he was tortured and confessed to being at al-Qaeda camps. Except that it turns out that his confessions were not true -- he was, in fact, an innocent man caught up in this web.) It turns out that normal interrogation techniques produce much better and far more reliable information.

Second, torture violates the law. We signed the Geneva Conventions, and we have our own laws on this issue. This should be a no-brainer.

Third, we don't want our troops to undergo "alternative interrogation". One of the major reasons for the Geneva Conventions, and for upholding our end of the bargain, is that we could expect similar treatment of soldiers captured by the other side. Although al-Qaeda may not treat our troops that way, a breakdown on our part could easily allow other countries to begin to slide on how well they uphold the Geneva Conventions.

Fourth, and by far most important, torture is simply morally wrong. Conservative supporters of torture have repeatedly argued that al-Qaeda does far worse than anything we do to detainees. However, I should hope that our moral standards are not set by comparing ourselves to al-Qaeda. To say, "Well, at least we're better than al-Qaeda" should be a massive embarrassment. Torturing other human beings, regardless of what they have done to you or what value you may think their confessions will have, is simply wrong. It may be tempting for a multitude of reasons, but it is still wrong. I am thoroughly baffled as to how Bush can claim to be a Christian and yet support torture. I am even more baffled as to how the Christians in this country can stand by Bush on this -- how they can't speak up about the immorality of such actions. Torture flies in the face of what Christianity is about. Where are the conservative Christians in this country right now? Is their Christianity subservient to their political ideology? Aren't they always writing about how Christians should let their religious beliefs influence their political beliefs? Obviously, they're all just hypocrites (which, ironically, was how Jesus insulted the Pharisees and others who were opposed to him -- it's not too far a stretch to say that the Christian right are those Pharisees of today.)

I hope that there at least a few more Republicans (besides McCain, Graham, and Warner) in the Senate who have the backbone and the moral integrity to stand up to Bush on this.