No Torture

U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney asked Republican senators this week to allow CIA exemptions from a proposed ban on the torture of terror suspects in U.S. custody.
Mr. Cheney told his audience the United States doesn't engage in torture, even though he said the administration needed an exemption from any legislation banning "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment in case the president decided one was necessary to prevent a terrorist attack.

Dear Mr. Cheney.
No.

Torture is wrong. It is UnChristian, it is immoral, it is unethical.
I will not live under a system of government that condones torture.
Everything that my father fought for in WW2, and my grandfather in WW1, was to save us from having to live under a regime that condones things like torture.

We are not terrorists. We are not torturers.
Other nations have turned to terrorism and torture, both against others and against their own people. They do it because it is effective, they do it to maintain order, they do it to maintain their positions.
Their excuse has been that it keeps the trains running on time. Their excuse has been that they are trying to keep communists from destablizing their governments.
Their real excuse is that they are willing to do anything to keep themselves in power.

They are not us. I am willing to die rather than become a torturer. I WILL NOT support a government of sadists, of butchers, of gestapo. I will not support a policy that will destroy the dignity of this nation, or discard all that generations of good men have fought for.

Mr. Cheney, this country will survive with dignity, or not at all. We are members of the Republican party, not the Donner party. We do not do whatever it takes to survive. There are fates worse than death.