Don't Torture in My Name
By Josh Madson
On September 13, 2003, Alyssa Peterson tragically ended her life. The third female soldier to die in Iraq since the invasion, Alyssa was a devout Mormon who had served a mission in the Netherlands. Shortly after her religious service, Alyssa volunteered to serve in the military. She was adept at learning languages and was sent to Arabic training school. Alyssa later volunteered to go to Iraq in place of another who did not want to go.
It was about this time in a conference room at the Pentagon that Donald Rumsfeld, frustrated from a lack of good intel, ordered the military to “gitmo-ize the situation" in Abu Ghraib and Iraq. Results of which we have all seen in the photos and videos that emerged from Abu Ghraib. It was in this situation that Alyssa Peterson, then serving in Tal-Afar, Iraq, found herself shortly before her death. We know that “Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. ..." After a confrontation with superiors, she was put on suicide watch and assigned to guard a gate. Alyssa “avoided eating with her interrogation team and spent time reading at her desk when she did not have other assignments.” Shortly thereafter, Alyssa was found dead in a field with her service rifle in the grass next to her.
“The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were.” We may never know the specific reasons Alyssa ended her life because the government is yet to release her suicide note. What we do know however is that Alyssa who had spent 18 months of her life preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to complete strangers, seeing them as children of God was later placed into a situation where she was asked to treat human beings as objects and torture them. Perhaps she felt as Kayla Williams, a fellow soldier who talked to Alyssa one week before her death and also protested the techniques used at Tal-Afar, when she stated the real problem with such techniques is that it, “made me question my humanity and the humanity of all Americans. It was difficult and to this day, I can no longer think I am a really good person and will do the right thing in the right situation."
In perhaps an even stranger irony, these techniques she was asked to perform were in part reverse engineered by two Mormons known in the CIA as the “Mormon mafia.” James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were part of a classified group known as SERE that trained US soldiers to withstand interrogation techniques. Mitchell and Jessen were handpicked to reverse engineer communist interrogation techniques and teach them to CIA interrogators. These techniques included waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and others. It was with the capture of Abu Zubaydah in March of 2002 that Mitchell and Jesse had their first chance to use their “enhanced” interrogation techniques.
Zubaydah was a mess when he was captured. Unable to eat, drink, sit, or control his bowels, the FBI began the process of nursing his wounds. At one point, Zubaydah turned septic and nearly died. While Zubaydah was being treated humanely by the FBI, he revealed one key intelligence detail: the identity of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. Shortly thereafter, the CIA interrogation team arrived and began the techniques designed by Mitchell and Jessen. Ronald Suskind reported that they strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, threatened him with certain death, withheld medication, bombarded him with noise and lights, and deprived him of sleep. At one point, the CIA had even began construction on a coffin to bury Zubaydah alive. It is no surprise that Dr. R. Scott Shumate, then chief operational psychologist for the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism center, packed his bags and left in disgust after witnessing Mitchell and Jessen’s techniques.
Under these conditions, Zubaydah began to “speak of plots of every variety — against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty.” Never mind that Zubaydah was in fact mentally ill and not the pivotal figure they believed him to be. Zubaydah’s diary he kept for more than a decade had three separate voices: a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. Dan Coleman, the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, stated, “This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality,” and referring to the CIA stated, “They all knew he was crazy.” Newsweek reported that one FBI agent “was so offended he threatened to arrest the CIA interrogators.”
More revealing is the testimony of John Kiriakou, the CIA interrogator of Zubaydah, who when asked whether he had legal authority for his actions in an ABC news interview stated, “Absolutely. Absolutely. I remember - I remember being told when - the President signed the - the authorities that they had been approved - not just by the National Security Counsel, but by the - but by the Justice Department as well, I remember people being surprised that the authorities were granted.” Zubaydah’s interrogation went on for months and we now know that the hundreds of hours of videotapes of his treatment were destroyed in November, 2005. In the case of Zubaydah we have direct involvement of top government officials, including the president, barbaric forms of torture, and meaningless intelligence from an already mentally ill man. As Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."
Soon these same techniques; first used in CIA blacks sites and then used in Guantanamo found their way to Iraq resulting in the atrocities of Abu Ghraib and in the crisis Alyssa Peterson found herself leading to her death. Meanwhile, Mitchell and Jessen got paid more than $1,000 per day plus expenses, tax free, for their overseas work and Mitchell finally purchased his dream house in Florida. It was Aldous Huxley who remarked that "the people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes... these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they're the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals."
Often the discussion surrounding torture concerns its effectiveness. However, there is a much more fundamental discussion that is needed when we address torture. If we assume that torture works, then the decision we must face is whether it is better to suffer a nuclear attack than save human life through morally compromised methods. At what point are we justified in not only killing but torturing another human being for the chance that they might know something that might save lives?
Torture has been used by a variety of unsavory groups and governments in history including our own. From the tormenta de toca (water cure) used during the Spanish Inquisition to elicit confessions, sleep deprivation used by Stalin to elicit confessions, the “VerschärfteVernehmung”or "enhanced interrogation" used by Nazis, and the Khmer Rouge’s use of waterboarding on dissidents. The former Prime Minister of Israel Menachim Begin described his sleep deprivation torture by the KGB as “In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep... Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it.” One individual who voluntarily submitted to a waterboarding experiment described the complete loss of control and willpower. It was not pain he remarked but “at the time my lungs emptied and I began to draw water, I would have sold my children to escape. There was no choice, or chance, and willpower was not involved.”
In our own history, US soldiers used a primitive form of waterboarding in the Phillipine-American war, “water is poured onto his face, down his throat and nose ... until the man gives some sign of giving in or becomes unconscious ... His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning, but who cannot drown.” This is the same technique Japanese soldiers used on US soldiers in WWII and were tried as war criminals and one Japanese soldier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. This same technique later found it’s way into police stations and military prisons particularly in the south.
In 1926 Mississippi’s highest court, in Fisher v. State, 110 So. 361, 362 (Miss. 1926), ruled a murderer’s confession be overturned because of “the water cure, a specie of torture well known to the bench and bar of the country.” This was based upon an earlier case, White v. State, 182, 91 So. 903, 904 (Miss. 1922), that overturned a murder conviction of a young black man whose hands “were tied behind him, he was laid upon the floor upon his back, and, while some of the men stood upon his feet, Gilbert, a very heavy man, stood with one foot entirely upon appellant's breast, and the other foot entirely upon his neck. While in that position what is described as the “water cure” was administered to him in an effort to extort a confession as to where the money was hidden which was supposed to have been taken from the dead man. The “water cure” appears to have consisted of pouring water from a dipper into the nose of appellant, so as to strangle him, thus causing pain and horror, for the purpose of forcing a confession. Under these barbarous circumstances the appellant readily confessed.” We should never forget that in the years from the civil war to civil rights, thousands of people were tortured and many killed by our own citizens. In one infamous lynching in Paris, Texas, a crowd of 10,000 men, women, and children took photos, ate popcorn, all the while a black man was tortured and burned alive.
Torture does what the Russian writer Aleksander Solzhenitsyn described in The Gulag Archipelago, it “befogs the reason, undermines the will, and the human being ceases to be himself, to be his own ‘I.’” All of these techniques and methods share the same goal: to break the human will. How should we react as Christians and Mormons to torture?
One of the fundamental values of Mormonism is the idea that God believes in free will and respects each individual soul. Mormons also believe that there was a decision made that free will was more important than using compulsion to prevent countless tragedies whether it was genocide, rape, child abuse, or even the salvation of our eternal souls. If free will is so sacred to God, how can we every justify doing what even God himself will not do: robbing a human soul of its will, its “I am.” It is a basic Christian tenet that we are to love our enemies and do good unto those who hate us. It is not just in the generalities that we are Christian, but in the particularities of turning the other cheek and enemy love. Christ is clear that this is how we become Sons of God. How we treat our enemies is an indicator of our level of discipleship. This says more about our Christianity than any professed creeds or ideas.
There are things more important than saving human life. This is not a question of self-righteous victimhood but an issue of self-preservation. Torture is ultimately about our own personal and national soul. When Peter learned of Christ’s future suffering and death on the cross, he rebuked the Lord and tried to prevent it. It is wise to remember the Savior’s words in response. He reminded Peter that we are to take up his cross and that if there are not boundaries we will not cross even to save our lives, we may lose our very soul. The real question is what will we exchange for our own soul, for our national soul? If we are willing to torture and break another’s will, we may be as worthy of Christ’s rebuke as Peter was, “Get behind me, Satan: you are a scandal to me: for you do not understand the things God, but those of men.”
Before Christ left he promised he would send us the comforter (parakletos). Satan is the accuser. The parakletos is the defender of the accused (Greek for defense attorney, the defender of victims). Jesus was tortured and crucified so that no one else would have to be a victim again. When we torture and when we kill victims, we deny the parakletos, the spirit. This is how we crucify Christ again and deny the holy spirit (the parakletos), the call to defend the accused. Stalin tortured men in the name of Russia, the Inquisition in the name of the church, Hitler in the name of German Nationalism, and our own government tortures in the name of freedom and liberty. At the end of the day, if we torture we are torturers and we deny the power and meaning of the cross.
I have to say, yes Torture is difficult to work around. I am a devout Member and an anarchist. I have done extensive research into this topic. The abu G scandal is something that hits pretty close to home, I grew Up with Megan Ambule, and fount it shocking to see a friend from as far back as elementary school plastered all over as a torturing maniac. What it came down to on a political front was that the Bush administration needed some good data, to prove they were ahead in the war somehow. But, it has cost them immensly, and they will all live out thier lives, wealthy, not having to answer to any of thier crimes. Till they have to explain it to the allmighty.
There have been elements of enhanced interrogation that do not fall under torture, that still are done today. In WWII a german Uboat team hung one of thier own navigators in a US POW camp, for giving his captors information about the Uboat operations. To get confessions out of the german sailors, they handcuffed a man, and put a gas mask on him, filled with fresh onions and garlic. Though uncomfortable, he was not tortured, and in no way was his life or safety threatened. (I probably would have liked it,). Another man in the crew had his appendix ruptured, and they gave him medication to keep him alive, but not to aleviate the pain, until he sang . It was enough after 3 days of this pain that his confession condemned the rest of the crew. They were all hanged by an American Camp Tribunal, for murder, and not to German law (which though they were POWs in the US, the laws of the German military applied , and they would have been found not guilty of anything beyond killing a traitor in thier forces. They were executed and burried without the German military knowing about it for years.
IT is a shame what mankind does, though I am not in the military, I respect the codes, and the laws they live by, both sides. (usually, ) though when left alone, butchering happens, and men (and as this article states women) end up having only the sorrow of the Damned.
"And seeing that death, the neccesary end, will come when it will come, the valiant never taste of death but once "
Brutus, in Shakespears Julius Cesar .
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actions of our nation. Though there be many members of the Church in
both the CIA and FBI, I find it beyond all the principles and doctrines I have
acquired throughout my life for any justification for this type of behavior.
In response to Alyssa Peterson: may God grace her with His endless
mercy. The battlefield is an awful reality not perceivable by any but those
that experience it, and I feel it is very similar to mental illness. Only God
knows what you are experiencing, thoughts and feelings beyond
expression, though on the opposite spectrum of inexpressible as in the
case of the Nephites whom Christ visited following his ascension.
I try really hard these days not to be a complete pessimist when it comes to
the United States, though somehow God is still with us, the righteous, if we
listen hard and long enough.
What sorrow I feel when I see Latter-day Saints, SAINTS! tossing aside teachings brought to us at such tremendous cost for the rewards of expediency. Though judgment resides in the hands of God, my feeling is that Alyssa Peterson will have nothing to fear.
"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace." (Alexander Pope)
2 recognized Mormons doing this?
Could this possibly exclude them from getting their recommends?
This is a sad day for Amerika and for good Mormons.
I wish we could return to the times of the BOM where those who wont fight for liberty are put to death. Those who refuse to stand at attention in allegiance to the stars and stripes, are crated up on a one way trip to china. I think we have gotten way to soft and way to politically correct.
The Book of Mormon is to be learned from (Be More Wise) and not
mimicked. The ethnocentric/nationa lism (us against them/fear/anger) is
what led to extinction. Nationalism is a major step away from the Gospel of
Christ and leads inexorably to crusades/countercrus ades and the
apocalypse for all. If you wish to "return to the times of the BOM" which I
assume you mean the 14 years of war and not fourteen years of ministry
which stands as a foil, then those who seek revenge will reap the "east
wind" and the destruction that inevitably follows. The Book of Mormon
gives us the formula to escape the death pattern and the DC gives us
essentially statutory law as to how to relate to enemies (DC 98), but we
chose to our peril to focus on the patterns that lead to death both physical
and spiritual and seek to mimic rather then reject. Mormon got it right "it is
by the wicked that the wicked are punished"----if you take up the sword and
pass judgment on your enemies with the same death you seek to avoid
(especially when you employ the pre-emptive strike doctrine of get them
first) then you are simply wicked--that the was the Gospel of Christ
unadulterated by nationalism.
The Lord is no respecter of persons. That includes human constructs such as nationalist identities.
Torture is a decidedly inefficient way to garner sensitive information. Most of the information produced from torture is riddled with falsehoods. Many torture victims lie in hopes to minimize their abuse. I would like to share an article from The Washington Post that I read last autumn. It documents effective interrogation techniques a group of US soldiers employed during WWII, namely playing chess. I would like to know what you think about the article after you've read it.
I really love the gospel of Christ and have HUGE doubts that he would commend something as gruesome and dehumanizing as torture.
To Hell with Nephi. Laman didn't deserve to die. Is that your philosophy? Teancum must not be on your list of favorite people either. Cut off the snakes head, and end the battle. Kill one to save hundreds or thousands. Torture for tortures sake was not the point i was making. Torture for the sake of interrogating and extracting information to save lives, especially those of my family and countrymen.
I have no use for torture like that of Ted Bundy or Mr. Dahmer or the taliban. But if i have a family member, neighbor or fellow soldier kidnapped and i catch one of the perpetrators, i would take him or her to the edge of death in order to extract information that would retrieve my loved one. I would head straight to the checkmate (maralie). "...any man who will not fight for his wife and children is a coward and a bastard." JS (if that is revenge, i will always be guilty). "Defend your families even unto bloodshed" (Alma 43:47). Oh wait, we should "Be More Wise" than that, right ron? Chess and mind games are fine when you have weeks and months to wait. But when you have groups who take your friends and loved ones with no desire to "swap prisoners" much less let them live, what then?
i don't think we disagree, i think we misunderstand. I have no need for an "us against them", but rather a "good vs evil". This whole existence so far has been a war (ron). You don't remember the first part in heaven but i assure you that it hasn't stopped.
I am unclear as to where you are extracting from my comments anything about nationalism. My definition:devotion and loyalty to one's own nation; patriotism. This definition is not conflicting with my concern for the world wide church and a world full of potential members.
"There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an
American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Theodore Roosevelt (1907)
"In a democracy we can renounce war and proclaim peace. There is opportunity for dissent. Many have been speaking out and doing so emphatically. That is their privilege. That is their right, so long as they do so legally. However, we all must also be mindful of another overriding responsibility, which I may add, governs my personal feelings and dictates my personal loyalties in the present situation.
When war raged between the Nephites and the Lamanites, the record states that "the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for ... power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church.
"And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God" (Alma 43:4546).
The Lord counseled them, "Defend your families even unto bloodshed" (Alma 43:47).
And Moroni "rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole.
"And he fastened on his headplate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins; and he took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coat, (and he called it the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the earth, and he prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren" (Alma 46:1213).
It is clear from these and other writings that there are times and circumstances when nations are justified, in fact have an obligation, to fight for family, for liberty, and against tyranny, threat, and oppression." GBH
My whole point in commenting on this thread was to inject a desire to fight for your friends, loved ones, and way of life. all i am hearing is be gentle to the bad guys of the world. Teach them by the word as much as possible. Preach until you are blue in the face, and water your pillow by night in their behalf. But when ok people turn to bad ruthless citizens of the earth, they must be dealt with. So, Peter and I are going to continue to chop off ears when necessary.
I wholeheartedly agree with the meaning of many of the quotes Travis shared including:,
-"...any man who will not fight for his wife and children is a coward and a bastard."
-"Defend your families even unto bloodshed" (Alma 43:47)
"the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for ... power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church.
-"And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God" (Alma 43:4546).
-It is clear from these and other writings that there are times and circumstances when nations are justified, in fact have an obligation, to fight for family, for liberty, and against tyranny, threat, and oppression." GBH
I cannot, however, imagine any of the righteous and admirable Book of Mormon leaders resorting to waterboarding their enemies.
When Cpt. Moroni fought wars, his heart was at peace ( a phrase borrowed form Terry Warner and the Arbinger Institute). He stopped in the middle of a battle he had entered justly to make an offer to the other side (let's not get hung up on the difference in the meaning of an oath then and now). "We do not desire to be men of blood. Ye know that ye are in our hands, yet we do not desire to slay you." (Alma 44:1) and later "I command you by all the desires which ye have for life, that ye deliver up your weapons of war unto us, and we will seek not your blood, but we will spare you lives, if ye will go your way and come not again to war against us" (Alma 44:6). Of course, he wasn't soft either. When the Lamanites rejected his offer he informed them "therefore as the Lord liveth, ye shall not depart except ye depart with an oath that ye will not return again against us to war. Now as ye are in our hands we will spill your blood upon the ground, or ye shall submit to the conditions which I have proposed" (Alma 44:11).
That was a very fair offer, and more than justice required, although it did not violate justice.
I believe Moroni was able to see the Lamanites as children of God, not objects, even in the midst of war, while killing those very children of God. I cannot conceive of someone with the Spirit waterboarding another.
Note: I find it most helpful to speak in the most clear and concrete of terms to avoid speaking around or beyond another, which often results in bad feelings. I've tried to be specific by limiting my comments to waterboarding, about which I feel I can speak clearly.
No, it's not better to suffer a nuclear attack. Or any other significant loss of life for that matter. Get a grip, man.
The facts are these: The Savior says be good, torture (by whatever euphamism) is not good; torture demonstrably does NOT work the way users want it to; and really in order to justify ourselves in its defense we need attitudes like "to hell with Nephi" and placing our identity as Americans uber alles, including above our identity as Christians. Torture for whatever reason or by whatever name, is irreconcilable with the teachings or life of the Savior. Using examples of war in the Book of Mormon means very little the way Travis has used it, since there is no analogy given that the Nephites 1) never attacked without provocation 2) were never obligated by the legal framework from which President Bush continues to believe his cause is exempt, namely the Geneva Conventions, UN Charter and, above all, the US Constitution which clearly defines Geneva and the UN Charter as "supreme law of the land" being treaties our country has ratified.
But speaking of our identity as Americans versus our identity as Christians. I hardly feel like I need to remind some of us that we are under a religious obligation to honor the law. The Iraq war never has, and torture certainly doesn't. There are good rhetorical and legal reasons for all of the Bush administration euphemisms for torture. If they called all of the illegal and inhumane practices they are continually overseeing, by their most direct names, their only legal resource would be akin to "to Hell with Nephi" but instead would be "to hell with rule of law."
As far as defending wife and family--you bet, I'm with Travis on that. It's a pretty hard (impossible, matter of fact) case to make that my wife and family was EVER threatened by the millions of dead and injured and displaced Iraqis. As a matter of fact, President Bush tried to and, as we know, the guy he got to make it formally to the UN called it by a not-nice name for bovine excrement. Evidently the rest of world's representatives in the UN agreed and so now do most citizens of the world, not to mention the US.
The American public was yet to be given a decent framework to judge the morality, let alone the legality of the "War on Terror." Please, Travis, and I mean this most sincerely, not as a sneer or a put down, look at the legal framework for the war, look at the evidence Bush was dealing with, and continues to deal with relating to the War of Terror. Look at his motives, look at his relationship to Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, et al before he took office, look at how many of the Gitmo detainees have been charged with and for what (Most of them have never been charged with anything. If they had been a serious threat to your family, surely the Intelligence beuarcracy could have found something to charge them with). It really could make you reassess your take on how the Bush PR machine has defined your patriotism and "loyalties in the present situation"
Torture isn't fighting to protect your wife and children, it is cowardly. It also requires time. Laban wasn't inprisioned indefinetly and made to linger, they just sliced his damn head off! ZIP!
Nephi didn't kill Laban so that his buddies could make a sweet profit off the brass plates either.
Alma 43: 45
"Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church."
.
Get level. The war in Iraq isn't vailant and virtuous. It IS about power. Power over resources, power over poor people. What exactly is it protecting your wife and kids from?
It is not protecting them from a slopping economy.
Our Commander in Chief and his friends aren't hurting financially. The mega rich are getting richer at the expense of millions of people. And there are pawns out here risking their lives who don't get to stick their hands in the war spoils purse, because they were sold on the notion that the elusive concept of 'terror' was out to get them. They think it is their patriotic duty to muscle around some Arabs, throw candy at children, adopt war torn pets, and rebuild bridges they busted in the first place.
Notice my tone, I'm fed-up with fantastical notions of this war protecting us from evil or terror.
Terror, to me, is having the Constitution compromised, having solider's lives compromised, an unstable economy, infringement of civil liberties, preventable hunger and poverty, lack of medical care etc. The list goes on and it didn't start at brown skin in the Middle East.
Good vs Evil? No grey area exists there, right? Whatever.
Witches who finally earned the compassion of burning at the stake had been through all kinds of torture; too awful to contemplate. Some of these women may have suffered from mental illness as in the case of Zubaydah. Since when did mental illness deserve torture?
The other people implicated by the so called witches were then interrogated and tortured until they too gave up names of anyone; just to get the pain to stop. Their pain stopped but the pain for those implicated began.
Who can withstand this kind of torture? It is wrong, wrong, wrong and using so- called religious books to justify it is taking God's name in vain and negates personal responsibility for humane treatment of all people.
Shame on anyone who uses the name of God in this way.
Capt. Moroni treated his prisoners humanely. He put them to work; he did not torture them to gain an advantage ("Where are the Lamanites going to attack next?" etc.)
The Book of Mormon teaches us to NEVER fight an offensive (pre-emptive war). When the Nephites attacked pre-emptively, they lost.
Laban reaped the judgment he had meted for robbery, and he was punished as a robber. And let's not forget, the Lord commanded his death. Is anyone here prepared to say all those people who died in Abu Grahab and other secret facilities were at the Lord's behest?
And Teancum... did he not also suffer the judgment he meted out to the Lamanite leaders? You judge other men to torture. Would you wish that judgment upon yourself? We would be wise to remember what the Lord said about judgment.
There are many people who lead our country that have much blood on their hands. I'm very proud to hear about people like Sis. Peterson who stuck by her morals and convictions, even if it cost her her life. There's a place for her in heaven.