Have your torture and eat it too

In response to recent reports of secret CIA prisons in Europe and Asia, President Bush made a blatantly contradictory statement Monday when he declared that the United States "does not torture" its prisoners. The president made this declaration while simultaneously supporting Vice President Dick Cheney's effort to stop a Senate-based ban on torture.

President Bush wants to have his cake and eat it too. However, by preventing this bill from being passed Bush is not only setting a bad example, but also causing a potential security problem for our soldiers.

Basically, the president is willing to tell the world his country is against torture and those who implement it, yet at the same time hide the fact that he does not have the conviction to pass a bill prohibiting torture in the future.

I typically refrain from writing about politics or anything concerning the president and the war in Iraq, but I believe Bush's statement aroused an interesting dilemma.

How many of our country's policies and beliefs are based, and revolve around, the idea of saying one thing but doing another?

Longing to find the answers to moral and ethical questions like this, I looked to wisdom that can only be found nestled in the hills of a small town in Colorado.

In a recent episode of South Park, Cartman flashes back to the year 1776 in order to find out if our country's founding fathers would have supported or protested the war against Iraq. I was amused but slightly disturbed by the concept.

With the country waging war against Iraq, the town of South Park is divided between "tree-hugging hippies" who are in complete opposition to any form of violence, and the self-proclaimed "patriots" who want to defend our country and support our troops. The town is, of course, a microcosm for the current state of our nation.

Now what's sad about this, besides the fact that I can relate any topic to an episode of South Park, is the fact that the point this episode made is accurate.

The issue of torture may not be directly related to the war in Iraq, but the contrasting statements and actions are similar. Our country protests war and violence yet actively invades other countries. The United States claims to oppose the implementation of torture, yet refuses to make it illegal.

Looking back, a ban on torture was implemented during the Geneva Convention so that countries could not torture their prisoners, and in turn could feel safe in knowing that their own soldiers would not be tortured. Other current senators have said that our refusal to pass a torture ban in senate is a threat to our own soldiers. If U.S. enemies discover that we won't make torture illegal, they will not think twice about torturing our soldiers.

So then what is the reasoning behind Bush's public condemnation of the use of torture and secret unwillingness to lawfully ban it? It epitomizes the contradictions in our country, similar to the way in which the United States must go to war to preserve our peace.

So what does Cartman discover is the intent of our founding fathers? That it is possible to run a country founded on peace and diplomacy when other countries only understand force.

In the words of the animated Thomas Jefferson, "what if we form a country that appears to want both war and peace. We go to war and protest going to war at the same time. If the people of our new country are allowed to do whatever they wish then some will support the war and some will protest. If we allow people to protest what the government does then the country will be forever blameless. It's like having your cake and eating it too."

South Park may be a sometimes outrageous, over-the-top, satirical comedic cartoon, but when it comes to analyzing the state of our society and it's problems it's often right on the money. Genius, an entire country founded on the premise of saying one thing and doing another.

As Cartman said, "It's a bitch, ain't it?"