An Open Letter about Torture to Senators Graham, McCain, and Warner

Dear Senators Graham, McCain, and Warner:

I know you are busy whipping up a compromise to change Common Article III of the Geneva Convention, which may help avert our commander-in-chief from being viewed by the world as a war criminal. I hope during your busy day you, or one of your staff members, will have the chance to read the letter I sent to each of you this morning regarding the moral ambiguity involved in enacting such a change.

As I have great doubts that my letter, which came from my soul and the souls of many other Americans, will ever make it out of the bottom the your mailbag, I am posting it here. I think clothing and ideas aired in the light of day tend to smell better after some time in the sun.

Please excuse the lack of the "Sincerely yours," etc. Your comment forms aren't set up for formality.

Dear Senator

I am from Ohio and you are not one of my two Senators. Technically. However, in the spirit of representative government as intended by our forefathers, you are my Senator. Each of the one hundred members of the body of the Senate is my Senator. You speak for me, Jane Q. Public, when I am unable to speak for myself, or when I am unable to reach power with truth.

Rewriting Common Article III of the Geneva Convention to allow loopholes for the continuation of the practice of torture, to be carried out in the names of all Americans, is morally repugnant. No acceptable compromise exists to moral repugnance. First-degree murder is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for it? Knocking down an old lady and stealing her handbag is morally repugnant. Is there a compromise for that?

Americans are waiting, suffering and waiting long, too long, for members of our national leadership to do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. It is morally reprehensible and hypocritical for our leaders to tie themselves to fundamental Christian values for political purposes while engaging in self-serving and morally reprehensible acts or allowing them to be done in America’s name.

Common Article III, as a law against torture, already exists and has stood, uncompromised, since 1949 as a stone in the foundation of America’s moral face to the world. It is a stone that should not be rolled away or have its integrity compromised, even if that means leaving government wrong-doers exposed. Compromising the Geneva Convention depletes us as a nation. It suggests to the world that we, as a people, are morally feeble and accept and expect rogue-state behavior from our leaders.