Mormonism and Torture

69-71_Petersen_torture.qxp 5/14/2008 2:14 PM Page 69 SUNSTONE MORMONS AND POLITICS Mormons are also inspired by the story of the two thousand stripling soldiers, who “took their weapons of war to defend their country” (Alma 53:18). MORMONISM AND TORTURE— On the other hand, one of the most moving Book of Mormon narratives involves PARADOXES AND FIRST PRINCIPLES the people of Ammon, who, after their con- version, made an oath never to shed blood again and “buried their weapons of war deep By Boyd Petersen in the earth” (Alma 26:32). As a result, many of them “laid down their lives . because of their love and of their hatred to sin” (Alma 26:34). The Doctrine and Covenants calls on ITT ROMNEY’S CAMPAIGN for this is an accurate reflection of what Romney Church members to “renounce war and pro- the presidency put Mormonism would have advocated as president, or claim peace” (D&C 98:16). It is also impor- M into the spotlight even though simply the type of political bravado we ex- tant to note that the Book of Mormon (and, Romney tried time and again to shove it back pect in political debates, there were legiti- within it, the Book of Ether) ends with unre- into the wings. While Romney had to face mate reasons to reflect on how Romney’s strained warfare’s ultimate result: the com- questions about whether he is really a Mormonism might have influenced his ac- plete annihilation of a people. Any positive Christian, about whether his allegiance to a tions regarding torture should he have been message given about warfare is undermined Mormon prophet would come before his al- elected. by the Book of Mormon’s tragic ending. legiance to the Constitution, and even about his Mormon underwear, it was sometimes IKE any religion, Mormonism thrives HE ways this paradox has influenced difficult to see how his religion affects his po- on paradox. Inevitably two funda- individual Mormons have recently litical beliefs. His shift on abortion was char- L mental but contradictory proposi- T found their way into the news. In acterized as political expedience: some saw it tions, both established as true, will come into July 2007, Vanity Fair published an article as pandering to the evangelical community conflict. While Mormonism shares with that disclosed the fact that the two authors of while others viewed his original pro-choice Christianity the violent Old Testament scrip- the new torture techniques being practiced position as pandering to the more liberal tures in which God commands Israel to de- by CIA interrogators are both Mormon psy- Massachusetts voters. On 60 Minutes, he stroy other nations, as well as the pacifism of chologists: James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce dodged a question about polygamy by New Testament scriptures advocating Jessen—who, because of their shared reli- stating that he couldn’t “imagine anything “turning the other cheek,” Mormonism’s own gion, were referred to by colleagues as the more awful than polygamy.”1 He tried to scriptures also provide paradoxical state- “Mormon mafia.” In addition to devising or slough off a Newsweek reporter’s question ments about war and human rights. On the adapting the new information extraction about whether or not he practiced baptism one hand, the Book of Mormon begins with techniques, Mitchell and Jessen also were put for the dead, a practice which has attracted Nephi’s being commanded to cut off Laban’s in charge of training interrogators in these controversy over ordinances performed for head after Laban had spurned repeated at- new techniques—including “water- Jews killed in the Holocaust, by stating, “I tempts to acquire the brass plates and had boarding”—at CIA “black sites” throughout have in my life, but I haven’t recently.”2 threatened to slay Nephi and his brothers. the world. Because of these many attempts to mini- The justification for Nephi’s slaying Laban is Steve Kleinman, an Air Force Reserve mize his Mormonism during his campaign, it that “it is better that one man should perish colonel and expert in military intelligence, should come as no surprise that the question than that a nation should dwindle and perish notes the peculiarity of the CIA’s choosing of how his Mormon beliefs would influence in unbelief” (1 Nephi 4:13).4 Since Nephi ob- “two clinical psychologists who had no intel- his views on controversial interrogation tech- tained information (i.e., his family’s records) ligence background whatsoever, who had niques such as waterboarding largely re- at the cost of one man’s life, this story could never conducted an interrogation . to do mained unasked. In one of the Republican be read as support for the position that ob- something that had never been proven in the presidential debates, Romney was asked taining from detainees information that could real world.” Another terrorism expert, about these techniques and responded by keep a nation safe is worth the suffering of a Michael Rolince, described the tactics as suggesting we should double the size of detainee in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib. “voodoo science.” Rolince said that the goal Guantanamo Bay. “I don’t want them on our Then there are the emotionally stirring words was to “break down” the suspects “through soil,” Romney stated. “I want them on of Captain Moroni as he rallies his army to isolation, white noise, completely take away Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access war and writes on his “standard of liberty” the their ability to predict the future, [and] create to lawyers that they get when they’re on our words: “In memory of our God, our religion, dependence on investigators.” Although the soil. I don’t want them in our prisons. I want and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and Bush administration claimed that interroga- them there.”3 While it is hard to tell whether our children” (Alma 46:12–13). Many young tors received careful training, many actually received only “on-the-job training during brutal interrogations that effectively unfolded BOYD PETERSEN has a Ph.D. in comparative literature and is the program coordi- as live demonstrations.” Kleinman feels that nator for Mormon Studies at Utah Valley State College. He is the author of the award- Mitchell and Jessen “have caused more harm winning biography Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life and is SUNSTONE’S to American national security than they’ll “Mormonism and politics” editor. ever understand.”5 APRIL 2008 PAGE 69 69-71_Petersen_torture.qxp 5/14/2008 2:14 PM Page 70 SUNSTONE nically one is prepared to do this, there are a whole lot of reasons you don’t want to do this, some of them morally based.”8 The Mormon psychologists who devised the HE torture debate became tragically new torture techniques “have caused more personal for one Mormon soldier. T Alyssa Peterson, a returned mis- harm to American national security than sionary with a gift for language, earned a psy- chology degree from Northern Arizona they’ll ever understand.” University on a military scholarship. After graduation, she went to the Defense Language Institute, where she quickly Coincidentally, defending the use of these professor at William and Mary, asked learned Arabic. At 27, she was sent to Iraq, questionable interrogation techniques fell to whether the LDS gospel commits Mormons where she served in an intelligence unit as- another Mormon, Judge Jay Bybee, a grad- to a particular ethical approach. He noted signed to a prison at Tal-Afar, in north- uate of BYU law school. In August 2002, that “if we are utilitarians,” it might be western Iraq, conducting interrogations and Bybee was the head of the Justice morally justifiable to torture someone in translating enemy documents. On 15 Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Bybee order to get information they had about a September 2003, the military reported that signed off on a controversial memorandum ticking bomb that was set to go off in an or- she had been killed by “non-hostile weapons stating that any interrogation techniques phanage; but, he writes, “it is probably not discharge,” only the third female soldier were legally permissible as long as the pain morally justifiable if we are Kantians.” Oman killed in Iraq. Her father reported to co- they caused was less than “serious physical notes that Burk’s argument rests upon the workers the day before her death that he had injury, such as organ failure, impairment of view that “good Mormons must be a premonition that his daughter was in bodily functions or even death.” If the intent Kantians,” but Oman also recognizes the trouble. is to gain information rather than cause paradox discussed above as he writes, “On An NPR reporter for KNAU in Flagstaff, harm, the memo reasoned, the technique the other hand, one can point to fairly utili- Arizona, Kevin Elston, also had a feeling that would be justifiable and could not be classi- tarian moral claims in scripture.”6 something was wrong—in this case with the fied as torture. Peggy Fletcher Stack summarized the de- Army’s official explanation. Upon filing a While the memo was eventually dis- bate within the Mormon community in a Salt Freedom of Information Act request, he dis- avowed by the White House, it caused a con- Lake Tribune article. She quoted Fred covered that Alyssa Peterson had died of a troversy, including among Latter-day Saints. Gedicks, a BYU law professor who refused to self-inflicted gunshot wound. Peterson had Dan Burk, an LDS law professor at the defend Bybee’s memo but added that “it’s fine objected to the interrogation techniques University of Minnesota, was irate and to talk about the teachings of the Savior about being used on prisoners, and after just two started a debate about the memo on the peace, but when the other side is not living nights working in “the cage,” she refused to Mormon blog Times and Seasons.

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