Compromising Our Values

Many of the reports on the so-called "compromise" in the Senate over Bush's secret prisons have shown it to be a sham. The "Mavericks" lead by McCain actually have just caved in to the Bush policy. In the Congress they didn't waste any time with the appearance of oversight, the Rubber-Stamp Republicans simply gave Bush everything he demanded. John McHugh, as usual, was in lock-step with the Bush agenda.

Bob Johnson has a different view:
I am a doctor, a veteran, and an American. Because of all three of those things, I strongly condemn torture in all of its forms, and I oppose the "legalized torture"” bill currently in the Congress.

As a doctor, I know what pain does to people, and I know that torture doesn'’t work. Under the extreme stress of torture, a person will say literally anything to make it stop. He or she will tell the interrogator whatever it is he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. Because of that, the information gleaned from torture is useless and
completely unreliable.

As a veteran, I know what the prohibitions against torture encoded in the Geneva Conventions have done to protect our soldiers through the years. Starting to carve out exceptions to those prohibitions exposes our soldiers to the "exceptions"” of others. That is why the US military is against allowing torture: it exposes our own soldiers, sailors, Marines, and members of the Air Force to greater risk.

And as an American, I know that torture is both against our national interests in the world and our basic conception of right and wrong. It is against our national interests because our moral authority has always been our greatest asset in the world. People looked to us and followed us because of what we represented. This quality has been
greatly diminished by the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress over the last few years; this bill allowing torture would greatly accelerate that.

And torture is just plain wrong; it'’s against the very fabric of America. It cheapens and degrades anyone who takes part in it, and it weakens the societies that allow it.

My opponent this fall, incumbent Republican John McHugh, firmly supports the Bush Administration'’s right to torture. Perhaps because he never served in the military, he doesn'’t understand how opposing torture protects our own troops. Perhaps because he hasn't put in the work to study the issue, he doesn'’t know that torture doesn'’t work and produces unreliable information. And perhaps because he has been in Washington so long, he has lost touch with the basic morality of what it means to be an American.

I can'’t say why he takes the position he does. But I do know this: he is profoundly, seriously, and morally wrong.

- Bob Johnson, Democratic and Working Families candidate for Congress (NY23)