John Woo Is Right - and wrong

John Woo Is Right - and wrong

John Woo is considered to be the legal architect behind the notion that American presidential powers include the right to order torture with respect to the current "war on terror" - including the right to torture children (the actual question put to Mr. Woo was: "If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?" to which the reply was: "No treaty.")

In the legal sense, Mr. Woo's reasoning appears sound although I will leave it to legal experts to debate this. However, this does beg the question: even in the face of legal permissibility, does the President of the United States have a higher responsibility to the moral principles enshrined within the American Constitution?

The American Founding Fathers maintained that human beings inherently possessed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The fact that an American president sought (and apparently found) a legal loophole that would contravene this fundamental principle should not in any way disuade the Administration from excising moral constraint.

Even to argue for the legal permissibility of the torture of children betrays a cold-blooded character that is distasteful to most. It is truly frightening to find this element of moral corruption within the leadership of the world's only super-power.

This again underscores the necessity of a Canadian government that possesses the moral authority to encourage - and in cases like this, demand - moral behaviour of its allies. The embarassment of the current Liberal-run regime must come to an end so that more important business - like establishing a world order that holds respect for human life as its fundamental prinicple - can be got on with.