Voices: Torture apologists






Lots of recent events have weighed on my mind recently. One concerns many torture apologist letters written to the Globe that are basically summed up as: “You want to fight terrorism don’t you? Besides, waterboarding isn’t so bad! It’s nothing compared to boot camp, or my high-school swim team.”

Another concerns Dr. George Tiller and the gunman who, fueled by “pro-life” rhetoric, murdered him in cold blood. These thoughts cross tracks.

Let’s stop beating around the bush: Scott Roeder and all the other anti-choicers that have killed doctors, bombed clinics and threatened patients? They’re terrorists. Using violence against civilians to obtain political or religious goals? Yep, that’s terrorism — the dictionary definition.

My query to the torture apologists is this: Since the anti-choice organizations are creating terrorists, are we justified in waterboarding them for information? Who knows, we may be able to prevent another terrorist attack.

What’s that? You’re not so gung-ho about waterboarding now? Huh. I hope you changed your mind because you realized that all torture is bad, and not because some terrorism is good.

Johnny Kaje

Lamar