[lit-ideas] Re: The torture graph
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 22:57:12 -0700
I had an eye operation as I indicated earlier and haven't read this entire
thread. I made some assumptions about it that may not have been accurate.
I assumed the thread was consistent with the Media emphasis, but perhaps
not. In any case my comments derive from the Media which did emphasize the
violations engaged in by our troops and had little in the way of criticism
to direct against the activities of our enemy. It is that to which I am
responding.
Of course we can't get into the various Rogue nations and Islamic tyrannies
of the Middle East to do surveys, but those who have been in these countries
provide anecdotal evidence indicating that torture is endemic in them. But
if you're interest has been in some hypothetical system of torture, why not
examine countries with a strong Islamic Fundamentalist presence?
We discussed in the past that in any army a small percentage will misbehave.
Surely we can't be talking about that again. Dismiss that. They misbehave
and are punished. Human nature is such that this percentage has always been
with us and we treat it as criminal and punish it. So moving right along
what is next?
Can you be talking about the Islamists coming at us with the next 9/11? Are
you worried about their civil rights? Is that what you've been doing? Fie.
Moving into the arena of the real torturers, have you not read of how they
cut off hands, put out eyes, cut off feet, kidnap, rape, behead? This is
the policy of the Islamists and much of this is also the policy of Islamic
Fundamentalists. When they do this they function in accordance with policy.
It is toward this group that ire should be directed. There is something
wrong with a society, or a portion of society, that hammers a few criminals
and anguishes over the possibility of torturing someone with knowledge about
the next 9/11 but has nothing to say against the Islamic Fundamentalists.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Robert Paul
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 9:21 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The torture graph
Lawrence wrote:
> In the old days we used to fight our enemies and not our own troops.
Who is 'fighting our own troops'? This is an odd way of describing a
concern for the activities of our government.
> This focus upon holding our own forces to a higher standard than our
> enemies seems all wrong to me.
It seems exactly right to me. I don't want to be like the NKVD, the
Gestapo, the French in Algiers. Embrace these practices if you will.
Count me out.
> If we were playing baseball and had to
> get 100 runs while our opponents only had to get 2, we would recognize
> the inequity and squawk.
This is not playing baseball, nor is this analogous to anything that has
been discussed here.'How can we fight with one hand tied behind our
back?' is always a familiar complaint on the part of those of limited
imagination.
> But we have forgotten how to fight, a fact
> well-known and well-publicized by our Islamist enemies. No guts, no
> willingness to fight, too timid by far, Osama says. And true to his
> assessment we anguish over the fact that we are human, that a small
> percentage (as occurs in every fighting force) is going to misbehave.
Nonsense, Lawrence. Is OBL now your authority on whether the US can
'fight'? (Nobody's talking about 'fighting.' We've been talking about
the use of torture.) Granted that there are sociopaths and sadists and
just plain nuts in an large military force. Nobody's denying that. But
how can you now attribute some (unspecified) wrongdoing to 'a small
percentage' (who are disturbed in various ways) while claiming that the
sort of thing people have here been calling into question should be our
_policy_? This is a strange conflation.
> We say never mind about the enemy, what about those of us who
> misbehave? We say never mind about the people trying to blow us up,
> what about the use of excessive force in trying to find out whom our
> enemy is.
It is the deliberate acts we're concerned with, not the pathology of
large groups. If you don't already know 'who the enemy is' is it all
right to go on fishing expeditions to see if some 21st century Winston
Smith might be an enemy? 'Excessive force' is legal jargon: the police,
while doing something they're otherwise authorized to do use excessive
force. Abner Louima was not the victim of 'excessive force' but of
something far worse.
> In the meantime, the enemy continues to blow up innocent people. They
> especially like to do that, and we say nothing in the way of criticism,
> but that's okay I guess, they are saying nothing even louder in Europe!
I'll pass over this rhetoric in silence.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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