Here’s a powerful piece by a Libyan woman who has a very personal stake in the Congressional report on the CIA’s torture and rendition programs–evil programs which put my beloved country in the “state-sponsored torture” category. In 2004, when she was 12, Khadija al-Saadi and her three siblings and parents, who had previously escaped from Libya, were kidnapped and “rendered” to Libya.

It was apparently part of a political deal with Gaddafi, something he wanted in return for helping the US and Britain fight terrorism. To the government officials who struck the deal, Khadija’s family were merely expendable pawns, anonymous Arabs to be traded. But Khadija writes, “For my family, it was personal: it was about my father being handed over to a dictator he had dared to oppose, to be beaten and nearly killed.”

Large portions of the report are blacked out. Khadija wants to see the names, dates, places, everything–a full accounting. She writes, “I wonder who will decide whether my name gets a black line drawn through it, and whether he or she will stop to think what that means…I want to know which places were used for the rendition programme; I want to know how my family were kidnapped and moved around like cargo; I want to know who gave the orders at each level. If there are individuals who are uncomfortable about that, it is nothing compared to the feelings I experienced aged 12, speeding through Libya on the way to a secret prison.”

She’s got a compelling point. I’ve read many tales of rendition from the Bush years. All of them result in torture. That was the idea. A very sad chapter in our history.

It’s silly the way folks are upset that President Obama shook hands with Raul Castro at the Nelson Mandela funeral. That was not the time or place to indulge our regional squabbles. Obama was a guest in another country, paying homage to the life of a great man from that country. In a situation like that, when you go down a line of state leaders, you shake hands with the next person in line, tyrant or not, period.

Imagine if every country used the occasion to snub whoever they don’t get along with–China vs. Taiwan, India vs. Pakistan, Honduras vs. El Salvador, Saudi Arabia vs. Iran, Turkey vs. Greece, the US vs. Syria, Iran, Columbia, Nicaragua, North Korea…on and on. Imagine if, at the Ronald Reagan funeral, the Chinese leader refused to shake hands with the Taiwan leader, with all the world watching. We would have been upset. There is a time and place for everything under the sun. A state funeral may not be that place.

The Mandela funeral was not about the US and Cuba. It was about Mandela and South Africa. It was appropriate for the various world leaders, as guests of South Africa, to be on their best behavior.

By all accounts, best behavior prevailed….mostly. Ted Cruz walked out of the memorial service when Castro spoke. That was incredibly petty and immature. Then there was Marco Rubio, who said, “If the president was going to shake his hand, he should have asked him about those basic freedoms Mandela was associated with that are denied in Cuba.” You mean, just stop in the middle of the funeral and begin a political discussion? Not the time or place, Marco. Grow up.

By the way, President Obama’s speech at the funeral was excellent. I’m sure FoxNews will, as they always do, insist that his speech involved apologizing for America (I read his speeches and NEVER agree with FoxNews about this apologizing nonsense). I thought his remarks at the funeral were an excellent message for the world.

CNN is getting lazy in covering the Royal Baby. After an initial flurry of CNN alerts, we’ve heard nothing of late. CNN should put some of its crack reporters on the case, and send out CNN Alerts as soon as the following bits of information are determined.

• how often the baby burps.
• who changes diapers the most.
• the preferred brand of diaper.
• the decibel level at which the baby cries.
• whether the baby has vomited on the Queen Mother and, if so, did her bodyguards immediately tackle and subdue the baby.

Don’t worry about verifying the information (as if that’s important to you anyway). “Unnamed sources” will suffice.

One of my great disappointments with President Obama regards the prisoners at Guantanamo. I don’t care that he hasn’t closed Guantanamo. Republicans have blocked him from doing that, killing all alternatives to housing those prisoners. The prison is necessary for now.

But of the 166 persons still imprisoned there, half have been cleared for release. Some have been kept there for 13 years, with no charges brought against them and no prosecution planned. Obama COULD take action to release them–he’s not totally powerless. Yet he does nothing.

It’s a case of American injustice. And injustice always bothers me deeply, especially since the Bible speaks so frequently against injustice.

Over the years, I’ve read many stories of injustice. For some reason they capture my attention, stabbing my soul.

• The Holocaust–no greater example of injustice, and no end to the stories. I’ve read many books about the Holocaust.
• The treatment of American Indians in the Old West.
• The plight of white farmers under the tyranny of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
• The cruelty of apartheid in South Africa.
• The three-strikes laws which send persons to life in prison for simple thefts.
• The internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2.
• The treatment of blacks in the South between the Civil War and the 1960s.
• McCarthyism.
• Media persons with an influential platform who engage in character assassination with little regard for truthfulness or telling the full story–Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and others.
• A legal system which favors persons with money, and tends to screw over people people on society’s lower rungs.
• The persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union during the Cold War years. I read a bunch of books about that during the 1970s.

I don’t know why injustice captures my attention so strongly. I can’t claim to have been a victim of injustice, nor have I actually done anything to combat injustice (beyond raising my voice against it and increasing people’s awareness of it). I guess God gives different people different burdens. There are other causes which deserve outrage, but which don’t outrage me…at least not like injustice does.

But back to Guantanamo.

I’ve read numerous stories and reports regarding America’s imprisonment and torture of Muslims. I was heartened recently, in reading one particular story about a Mauritanian who has been imprisoned since 2003, has undergone torture at the hands of Americans (at the personal direction of Don Rumsfield), and has never been charged. He’s been cleared for release, no charges ever brought against him. Yet for 10 years, he has languished in this terrible prison. (His story was published, at length, in Slate.)

What heartened me is, at one point the military assigned an evangelical Christian to prosecute the guy, but upon learning about how this Mauritanian had been tortured, he refused to take the case. He cited biblical objections. I’ve read other stories of Americans in the military, CIA, and FBI who, either for religious or simply moral reasons, have done what they could to oppose the use of torture and false imprisonment–sometimes putting their own career at risk.

I work in a denomination dominated by Republicans and fans of FoxNews. But only once or twice have I heard another United Brethren object to the use of torture, rendition, or false imprisonment. I hear fellow Christians dismiss objections about Guantanamo simply because the prisoners are Muslims, and they hate Muslims or think all Muslims are terrorists. One fellow Christian even told me that, if asked by his country, he would readily take part in torturing prisoners. This complacency about injustice bothers me deeply. And it’s one reason I continue raising my voice in writing.

I’m finishing a wonderful book called “A Short History of the World,” by Christopher Richard Lascelles (a real mouthful of a name). The book takes a whirlwind tour through history starting with the Big Bang. I wish I had read it when I was young, to give me a foundational overview of world history. It’s just 165 pages long, and imminently readable.

History is mostly the story of the rise and fall of civilizations. One thing that struck me was the number of great empires that began declining when they divided. After Alexander the Great died, the Greek empire was divided among five generals. The Mongol Empire was divided among Genghis Kahn’s four sons. The Roman empire divided in half. Charlemagne’s Frankish empire was divided among several descendants.

It made me think of the current secessionist movements in the United States, with various states wanting to withdraw and become their own country. If Texas pulled out of the US, or the northwest states, or other regions, would that begin the decline of the US as a world superpower? Probably. We could get along without the Dakotas, but if one state withdrew, other dominos would fall. And I seriously doubt we would go to war (as Lincoln did) against fellow citizens. Not today, with our emphasis on self-determination.

I remember hearing Sean Hannity talking to someone who wanted Texas to secede. Hannity concluded the interview by saying, “I support what you’re doing.” And I wondered if Hannity really understood the consequences for America. It disturbed me that this one opinionated guy with a popular TV and radio show favored the disintegration of my country, and was probably convincing millions of listeners that this was a good thing.

Then you can consider: What if the South had won the Civil War? America as we know it would not exist. Instead, we would have had two countries–significant countries, but probably not superpowers–on a continual war footing with each other. The two countries probably would have had border clashes, if not all-out wars, various times over the years–perpetual enemies. They might have become friendly, but never friends. And the world would be lesser for it.

So thank you, President Lincoln, for preserving the union. And woe to the clownish Sean Hannity and all the other people who now want to divide our country into geographical pieces.