Tuesday, May 11, 2004
The Thug Life
So, I've been asked about the whole prisoner abuse issue over the last couple of weeks, but have been withholding comment until I was able to hear a bit more in the way of details. I've heard enough now. I mean that. I've heard plenty and I'm pissed off.
George W. has set a number of dangerous precedents with his international policy. His treating the Guantanamo Bay prisoners as enemy combatants (which is one of the biggest load of crap technical terms made up in the last half century) created an air of disrespect in the rest of the world as we suspended the rights of these people, rights we triumph to the rest of the world, all in the name of seeking justice.
Leeway was given when the decision was first made because it was all done as a part of the US response to the September 11th attacks. The problem is that it's 3 years later, those people are still being held they still haven't seen lawyers nor have many of them been told a specific reason why they are being held. More importantly is how are they helping us in this "war against terror". This isn't to say that some of them might be helping, but keeping them under an air of secrecy certainly raises some questions.
The second, more dangerous precedent, was that of preemptive self-defense. (This would have been the biggest load of crap term of the last half century but for the fact that it's oxymoronic and so nonsensical it didn't qualify.) There's no such thing as preemptive self-defense. Short of you being psychic, there's no way to know whether someone will strike you first until they do. Along with all the other (now known to be inaccurate) reason we went into Iraq, the idea that Saddam might someday once again become a threat to the United States, even though he never directly was, is the worst of the lot. Short of one failed assassination attempt on the first president Bush, Saddam mostly has spent the last decade taking pot shots at planes he can't hit flying in the no-fly zone. He wasn't an imminent danger in any way. This logic that was used was akin to John Doe, walking into a bar, turning to the guy sitting next to him and beating the living hell out of him claiming, 8 to 10 more beers and he was going to get belligerent. "If I hadn't preemptively struck, he would have hit me first."
This preemptive self-defense actually creates a justification for the al Qaida 9/11 attacks. Think about it. We'd been after Osama for years, he was simply preemptively defending himself before we could get to him. In fact, the whole theory gives license to anyone who thinks that the United States might disagree with them at some point to attack at our interest abroad and here at home. Might as well get us before we get them because that's how we operate now. You don't have to do a thing, we're coming to get you.
This all leads to the last precedent, the worst of the three; Our self decreed moral authority. Americans have long held the theory that we are better than everyone else. Everywhere we go, we take this attitude with us. Often it's something drawn from a spiritual place. Bush even said in one of his speeches that he believes we're in Iraq on authority from God. This is all well and good but for one thing. You can't climb up on a pedestal and piss on people without them trying to knock you off. I'd love to believe that we are a morally superior people, but we aren't. We're just people. There are good people and bad people in the United States. We see examples of this every day. We have no right to the moral superiority, but the problem we have is that our avarice is so great that we can't see our flaws. Our mirror has no glass, it's got a life-size photoshopped picture with a halo.
Abu Ghraib prison was a palace of torture for Saddam Hussein's regime, when we took it over, the assumption was that while we might still house prisoners there they would be treated with respect or at least under the accords of the Geneva Convention. This was not the case. This was far from the case and frankly, who's at fault is still up for grabs. Those seven soldiers will be prosecuted and found guilty no doubt, but that won't answer the questions. If we're truly morally superior, how does something like this happen? We don't do things like this. But we do.
The rest of the world knows this, or at least believed this to be true. It's a call that has been resounding throughout the Middle East for years. It's one of the reasons we're so hated. Now, those feelings, many of which had been based on hearsay, now have pictorial evidence. Yes, we removed a horrible dictator who tortured and humiliated his enemies, but we've replaced him with people who torture and humiliate our enemies.
Defenders of the US will have their reasons. Rush Limbaugh likened the whole thing to a fraternity prank. Must have been a tough time for Rush to have been sodomized with a light stick while in college. It's no wonder he doesn't have much sympathy for most people... I'd be addicted to pain killers too if I had crap like that shoved up my ass.
One of the senators during a hearing today asked why we were even investigating the prison scandal. He claimed that the people who were in prison were there because they were criminals and that many probably had American blood on their hands so anything we did was justified. Wrong dumbass, even if they do have American blood on their hands, under the Geneva Conventions we have to treat them a certain way and this isn't it. This attitude, of course, is the perfect example of why hatred for the United States probably is justified. You see, we can torture their people, but to do it to ours is unthinkable because we're their betters. Let no one question our White Man's Burden, or new Manifest Destiny.
An America man was beheaded in Iraq. The video was posted on the internet. The group that killed him claims they did it in response for Iraqi prisoner abuse. In truth I think it happens regardless, but now their excuse holds more water. Why show us respect when we'll not give then any?
Most of our soldiers are really good people who are fighting with honor, trying to do the right thing. The actions of a few shouldn't soil the rest in our eyes here. Those actions are merely a small footnote, reflecting a larger problem, a problem that eats away at our international credibility every day.
I don't know that I have an answer for this. Perhaps, more than anything, I can only hope that we start backing up our talk with actions. If we're the moral leaders of the world (as we seem to think) acting morally would probably be a good start.
George W. has set a number of dangerous precedents with his international policy. His treating the Guantanamo Bay prisoners as enemy combatants (which is one of the biggest load of crap technical terms made up in the last half century) created an air of disrespect in the rest of the world as we suspended the rights of these people, rights we triumph to the rest of the world, all in the name of seeking justice.
Leeway was given when the decision was first made because it was all done as a part of the US response to the September 11th attacks. The problem is that it's 3 years later, those people are still being held they still haven't seen lawyers nor have many of them been told a specific reason why they are being held. More importantly is how are they helping us in this "war against terror". This isn't to say that some of them might be helping, but keeping them under an air of secrecy certainly raises some questions.
The second, more dangerous precedent, was that of preemptive self-defense. (This would have been the biggest load of crap term of the last half century but for the fact that it's oxymoronic and so nonsensical it didn't qualify.) There's no such thing as preemptive self-defense. Short of you being psychic, there's no way to know whether someone will strike you first until they do. Along with all the other (now known to be inaccurate) reason we went into Iraq, the idea that Saddam might someday once again become a threat to the United States, even though he never directly was, is the worst of the lot. Short of one failed assassination attempt on the first president Bush, Saddam mostly has spent the last decade taking pot shots at planes he can't hit flying in the no-fly zone. He wasn't an imminent danger in any way. This logic that was used was akin to John Doe, walking into a bar, turning to the guy sitting next to him and beating the living hell out of him claiming, 8 to 10 more beers and he was going to get belligerent. "If I hadn't preemptively struck, he would have hit me first."
This preemptive self-defense actually creates a justification for the al Qaida 9/11 attacks. Think about it. We'd been after Osama for years, he was simply preemptively defending himself before we could get to him. In fact, the whole theory gives license to anyone who thinks that the United States might disagree with them at some point to attack at our interest abroad and here at home. Might as well get us before we get them because that's how we operate now. You don't have to do a thing, we're coming to get you.
This all leads to the last precedent, the worst of the three; Our self decreed moral authority. Americans have long held the theory that we are better than everyone else. Everywhere we go, we take this attitude with us. Often it's something drawn from a spiritual place. Bush even said in one of his speeches that he believes we're in Iraq on authority from God. This is all well and good but for one thing. You can't climb up on a pedestal and piss on people without them trying to knock you off. I'd love to believe that we are a morally superior people, but we aren't. We're just people. There are good people and bad people in the United States. We see examples of this every day. We have no right to the moral superiority, but the problem we have is that our avarice is so great that we can't see our flaws. Our mirror has no glass, it's got a life-size photoshopped picture with a halo.
Abu Ghraib prison was a palace of torture for Saddam Hussein's regime, when we took it over, the assumption was that while we might still house prisoners there they would be treated with respect or at least under the accords of the Geneva Convention. This was not the case. This was far from the case and frankly, who's at fault is still up for grabs. Those seven soldiers will be prosecuted and found guilty no doubt, but that won't answer the questions. If we're truly morally superior, how does something like this happen? We don't do things like this. But we do.
The rest of the world knows this, or at least believed this to be true. It's a call that has been resounding throughout the Middle East for years. It's one of the reasons we're so hated. Now, those feelings, many of which had been based on hearsay, now have pictorial evidence. Yes, we removed a horrible dictator who tortured and humiliated his enemies, but we've replaced him with people who torture and humiliate our enemies.
Defenders of the US will have their reasons. Rush Limbaugh likened the whole thing to a fraternity prank. Must have been a tough time for Rush to have been sodomized with a light stick while in college. It's no wonder he doesn't have much sympathy for most people... I'd be addicted to pain killers too if I had crap like that shoved up my ass.
One of the senators during a hearing today asked why we were even investigating the prison scandal. He claimed that the people who were in prison were there because they were criminals and that many probably had American blood on their hands so anything we did was justified. Wrong dumbass, even if they do have American blood on their hands, under the Geneva Conventions we have to treat them a certain way and this isn't it. This attitude, of course, is the perfect example of why hatred for the United States probably is justified. You see, we can torture their people, but to do it to ours is unthinkable because we're their betters. Let no one question our White Man's Burden, or new Manifest Destiny.
An America man was beheaded in Iraq. The video was posted on the internet. The group that killed him claims they did it in response for Iraqi prisoner abuse. In truth I think it happens regardless, but now their excuse holds more water. Why show us respect when we'll not give then any?
Most of our soldiers are really good people who are fighting with honor, trying to do the right thing. The actions of a few shouldn't soil the rest in our eyes here. Those actions are merely a small footnote, reflecting a larger problem, a problem that eats away at our international credibility every day.
I don't know that I have an answer for this. Perhaps, more than anything, I can only hope that we start backing up our talk with actions. If we're the moral leaders of the world (as we seem to think) acting morally would probably be a good start.
