Hey Man, You're Torturing Me
Look, I don't want to believe that my Christian brother George W. Bush has approved the use of torture on terrorists in captivity at Guantanamo Bay or anywhere else. I want to believe he, at least mentally, wears his “WWJD” bracelet and refers to it when he needs to make a decision.
“Let's see. Would Jesus approve of people torturing people? No matter how noble the motive? No, I guess not.
"OK – you can't do it. Sorry, Mr. Rumsfeld, find another way to get the information.”
The trouble is it doesn't much matter what I want to believe. What matters is to find out, once and for all, whether our government, for the first time in history, has made torturing prisoners a matter of policy. The administration denies it right and left. Yet their interrogation methods remain so secret a prisoner can't even tell his lawyer what they did to him. And maybe it's true that, in another example, those soldiers at Abu Gharib just decided on their own to torture prisoners. And maybe it's true that Rumsfeld knew nothing about it.
But those questions won't go away. Once they've started they have to be answered.
But we Americans won't talk about it. It's too horrible. How many times did you hear the torture issue come up in pre-election arguing? I never did. Peter Steinfels, writing in the New York Times last Saturday, suggests torture “is such a stain on personal and national character that nothing but appalling photographs could have forced the subject to the fore.”
That's why I am a little upbeat about the suit a group of American lawyers (the Center for Constitutional Rights) filed in Germany yesterday. They asked the German government to investigate Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and George Tenet, the former director of the CIA. Investigate them for “suspected war crimes stemming from the treatment of prisoners in military jails in Iraq and Cuba.” German law allows for prosecuting war criminals no matter who they work for.
Hey, Greatest Generation, how would you feel about Germany prosecuting the USA's ex-Secretary of Defense for war crimes? I'm with you – I would hate it.
To me, that's the point. We've got to get this out in the open air. Rub our noses in it. I refuse to believe the American people have become so decadent that they will just yawn and change the channel if it turns out to be true (I know this sounds incredibly naive) that Americans have been torturing their enemies.
“Let's see. Would Jesus approve of people torturing people? No matter how noble the motive? No, I guess not.
"OK – you can't do it. Sorry, Mr. Rumsfeld, find another way to get the information.”
The trouble is it doesn't much matter what I want to believe. What matters is to find out, once and for all, whether our government, for the first time in history, has made torturing prisoners a matter of policy. The administration denies it right and left. Yet their interrogation methods remain so secret a prisoner can't even tell his lawyer what they did to him. And maybe it's true that, in another example, those soldiers at Abu Gharib just decided on their own to torture prisoners. And maybe it's true that Rumsfeld knew nothing about it.
But those questions won't go away. Once they've started they have to be answered.
But we Americans won't talk about it. It's too horrible. How many times did you hear the torture issue come up in pre-election arguing? I never did. Peter Steinfels, writing in the New York Times last Saturday, suggests torture “is such a stain on personal and national character that nothing but appalling photographs could have forced the subject to the fore.”
That's why I am a little upbeat about the suit a group of American lawyers (the Center for Constitutional Rights) filed in Germany yesterday. They asked the German government to investigate Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and George Tenet, the former director of the CIA. Investigate them for “suspected war crimes stemming from the treatment of prisoners in military jails in Iraq and Cuba.” German law allows for prosecuting war criminals no matter who they work for.
Hey, Greatest Generation, how would you feel about Germany prosecuting the USA's ex-Secretary of Defense for war crimes? I'm with you – I would hate it.
To me, that's the point. We've got to get this out in the open air. Rub our noses in it. I refuse to believe the American people have become so decadent that they will just yawn and change the channel if it turns out to be true (I know this sounds incredibly naive) that Americans have been torturing their enemies.
Labels: Simple Justice
posted by Christopher Newton at 7:51 AM
10 Comments:
I want to be optimistic, I really do. If you haven't guessed by now though, I'm not.
To understand the evil and vile (gee, just move the 'e') we sometimes have to use them as our example.
Prior to the "Final Solution", Hitler said something to the effect that the Jews won't be remembered after a while. After all, he quipped, who remembered the Armenians?
Another Hitlerism that, unfortunately, is a timeless quote is:
"Give the masses a little bread and a little circus and they will be content."
Why was he, of all people right?
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Rumsfeld, the man who brokered the weapons deal between the US and Sadaam back in the Reagan years, will walk, probably do a tv talk thing with Ollie North.
People like John McCain who know first hand about torture and how it feels will remain unheeded. How we look to the world obviously doesn't matter to enough people. The Ugly American we read about 50 years ago didn't die, his son took the job and does it better than he ever could.
The bit that gets me the most, is the official arguments going on as to the actual definiton of "torture". In my thinking, although circumstancial evidence it is, the mere questioning of the definition, supports guilt of committing (it). Bush wants a definition????
People are human and are protected under the basic rights (of war) set out by the UN and the Geneva Convention (which America didn't sign) and a host of others groups that demand human rights violations cease now!. If treatment is physically uncomfortable, isn't that, in and of itself, torture?
I just look at all this torture issue stuff as keeping one's self above reproach. I don't pretend the horrors of other countries' treatment of prisoners isn't real and atrocious. It is all too horrifically real.
No, it's not straining the gnat and all that. That is avoiding the issue rather than addressing it. Self-examination, as a country should never be out of the question but, somehow, always gets relegated to, "Look at how bad they are..."
I don't take that lame excuse from my kids when they do something stupid and try to show me how much more stupid the neighbors are. I call that changing the subject to divert attention away from what they did and I call them on it.
Why can't people/politicians be a little self-reproving with out being thrown into an argument about wealth and politics? It has nothing to do with hating anyone for making it in the financial world. It has to do with being aware and responsible for our corporate actions. When some goons in Abu Girab stack up a bunch of naked guys and it pisses people off, it reflects on us in much the same way we lump all Iranians, for example, in the terrorist camp because of the actions of some of their countrymen.
We don't like to be generalized about, do we? So why do we do it to other countries? Makes no sense, does it?
The approach of Sen. Mc Cain has always been that we need to be above the argument by not condoning the behavior in the first place. That is a noble place to be and, coming from one who has suffered at the hands of torturers, he is, unfortunately, an expert on torture.
Treating human beings like shit is wrong, no matter who does it. Just because we aren't as bad just doesn't cut it as an argument. Shit smells no matter who does it, some just don't shit as much.
Rumsfeld's tactics (good or bad)are part of a bigger plan that most all pundits on either side of the fence will agree, began in the Reagan years, was tried again in the Bush I years and aborted, but brought to fruition in the Bush II years. The real ramifications of the whole thing won't be seen for at least a generation after the fact. It usually takes that long to look with something like objectivity.
In the mean time, nothing will happen. Nothing will change. A little Bread and a little circus...
It has nothing to do with Liberal or Conservative. It has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican. Those are labels we put on ourselves, labels that mean nothing in God's economy. God's economy really doesn't have a column for our nonsense. He smniles and lets us be dopey, and then leaves us be.
The existence of us, as a people, relies on us being able to relate and scrap and fight and come to real terms with the issues we have to deal with.
It, our existence as a nation, starves for our input and eternal vigilance. We miss that and just ask for simple answers from dogmatic perspectives. We put it into idiotic terms, like party.
That's where guys like Joe Lieberman see the light. Common sense ought to rule over party politics. It ought to, but it really never does.
Politically, we say stupid things like,
"I'm glad my party is in power now. Maybe we'll shake things up and get some real results."
Or the other side says, "Good. Let the idiots take a crack for a while. They'll screw up and the real leaders will regain their power.
My God. We are screwed up.
Our existence, as God's creations, is simple.
We are made by him.
We do what he says.
We don't do what he says and we are wrong.
When we screw up, we make problems.
When we put our relationship with God second to our political affiliations, we screw up the whole magilla.
In the end, it's about how we, you and I, personally relate with God.
Politics is bullshit.
See, God longs for us to be with him and we need to be with him. I don't give a rip about what politicians or movers and shakers do about an issue. I worry about you, the person I know.
It's about relationship and not about political crap. It's about me loving you so much that I want to make a difference in your life.
What relationships do I have that I can influence? Can I get us all a little closer to God's angle?
That's what's important. Agreeing politically means absolutely nothing.
We just gotta ask God what he wants and then we have to try and do what he says. He pretty much already told us, we sometimes have to ask again because our ears don't work so well
Most all of us do what we want and ignore what he wants. As long as we do that, we'll never get it right.
I'm not optimistic because we ignore or rationalize God's role in our lives. We make him second or third.
We put our ideas and prejudices and hatreds first and then expect God to justify them.
We expect God to take our trash and make it important.
Ted, you keep changing the subject. It has nothing to do with individual incidents. Don't grab on words, cling to the underlying issue. It has nothing to do with Abu G. as much as it has to do with being responsible.
Dontcha get that? I don't care who is in power. I care about what they do with it. If we do something idiotic like Abu G., then we answer for it, not make lame excuses about how someone else is worse than us. That is juvenile, no matter how we try to cloak it.
America is a great place, and I'll suffer no other home. But neither can I excuse assinine behavior by our troops and call it OK because some horrific individuals do worse than us somewhere else.
We're not talking about someone else. We're talking about us. Me, you, the people that represent us. the people that fight in our stead.
Don't change the subject, don't blame some islamic battle somewhere else. Talk about our behavior.
Maybe that's why we are perceived as an immoral nation. Hell, we can't even come to grips with our personal sins, let alone address corporate sins. When our personal lives are screwed, how can we possibly make any moral sense in the world?
How can I get the speck out of someone else's eye when I ignore the plank in my own?
Leo, you speak sense. You speak truth. The bottom line is this: Love God, love your neighbour. The Military can hold individuals and still follow this simple rule. When troops, while waring, gang rape a 12 year old girl then murder her and her family to cover it up, it doesn't matter what THEY DO OVER THERE...to compare is asinine and bloody insane! Rights right. To point out another comparison, in my latest blog, I ranted about Sharia Law and rape in Pakistan. Does that ongoing situation mean I can do likewise here in Canada? Strongly, adamantly, I think not!!
It's not about groups, as you so clearly pointed out, it's about individuals!
He seems to use his head though doesn't he? Leo for Prez??
Now boys. Yall settle down or I'm gona ask the pig to kick yall out of the sty. I come here for fun and laffs not all this banter and bicker over stuff out of our control annyways?
Me thinks you would have seen clearly enough to understand that I meant "forced" uncomfort. You're drawing straws here mate, let it go.
OK, Mr. Spock. This isn't logical, not one bit of it. You guys are on some sort of roll here. The Foghorn is right. Cool your jets. And I mean it too
Haille Sellassie
King of Kings
Lord of Lords
Last in the line of King Solomon.
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