PZ Myers. 2005 Jan 25. It's incomprehensible. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/its_incomprehensible/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Tuesday, January 25, 2005
It's incomprehensible
I don't even understand how we can be talking about this. Before the election, the words "Abu Ghraib" were such a crystal-clear condemnation of the Bush administration, that I simply could not believe the man would be elected. Even now I'm at a loss to grasp how people with even a shred of conscience could vote for a regime that endorsed torture.
Well, maybe I can faintly see that people might think that Bush was stronger on defense, and could elect the administration while deploring some of their actions. It seems to me, though, that even those who endorse the larger policies of Bush should at least be willing to speak out against the details. And Gonzales is such a detail. Gonzales should have had the role of being Bush's legal conscience, the quiet voice at his shoulder that says, "this is wrong." Instead, he's been an abettor—from damning the condemned in Texas with his silence, to writing and endorsing policies that have defied civilized behavior and encouraged what can only be called evil, he's been nothing but a banal homonculus who hasn't even tried to speak up for what is right.
I want him out.
I've already written to my senators and told them that this is an issue on which I'll tolerate no compromise. They must oppose Gonzales, or there is simply nothing they will be able to do in the next few years to convince me to vote for them. This nation elected Bush. I hope they can at least speak out against one foul creature in his service.
I want more than "no" on Gonzales. I want him damned and cast out with the most vocal disgust. This is where our country could send a message that we will not condone or tolerate the inhumanity he has blandly advocated.
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I wonder how Dayton will vote on this. Somehow, I doubt Coleman would have gotten your vote anyway.
#: Posted by lloydletta on 01/25 at 06:48 PM - It is weird. "Someone we regs know" was mentioning his consternation over how atheists could 'believe' in various [highly distorted] items he chose to present. I don't understand how the [neo]christian right, those of them who openly champion BushCo, can juggle things like torture and so forth with their self-proclaimed sense of morality. I understand many of them are delusional beyond hope, but a lot of them are relatively rational. Yet as far as I can tell, they haven't yet caught on that they lost the morality argument the minute they signed on to Bush & Gonzales.
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I believe the concept they might invoke is "once saved, always saved".
#: Posted by on 01/25 at 07:22 PM
- BTW you can get e-mails/phone numbers for your Senate reps HERE.
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I'm in a tricky spot. My senators are Kerry and Kennedy. Suppose they vote for Gonzales? The only way to vote against my senators is to vote for a Rethuglican. And I fear they will endorse him, actually, out of a desire to pick battles they can win.
#: Posted by on 01/25 at 07:49 PM
- LOL ... I'm guessing they won't. But send 'em an e-mail anyway. They need to hear the support and PZ is 100% dead on balls accurate that this is a no brainer for anyone who values American values.
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Yeah, Eva, I didn't say I would vote for them if they rejected Gonzales, I said I definitely wouldn't if they approved him. There's not much Smilin' Norm could do to win my vote (by the way, that dentist's page that was touting all of his cosmetic work seems to have been zapped. Guess I'll have to use google's cache.)
And if Kerry or Kennedy were my senators, and they voted for Gonzales, I'd be telling they've lost my vote. And I'd stick to that. How else are we going to get representatives with a spine if we don't stick to our principles? - Did you have to include a link to that moron Carter, DS? I want the three minutes I spent gagging over his masturbatory whine back. I'll be sending you a bill.
- Sorry, I'll kill it.
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.. and this post will only require minor modifications to address the upcoming vote on Condi Rice. I swear Dick must have told Joementum that he can be VP if the pacemaker fails. Lieberman might actually win a bootlicking contest against Rice.
As far as Kennedy and Kerry and their ilk go, there are primaries where we attempt to improve our candidates before they face the Republicans. I have my eye on Murray and Cantwell, and have not hesitated to let them know that firm stands are called for on these nominations and Social Security. This aint fence stradling time folks.
And, I was thinking that Teddy sounds like he is in the 'who gives a f**k' mood that would serve him well in a run for the White House. A Dean and Kennedy primary contest could be fun.#: Posted by on 01/25 at 08:23 PM -
Re:
I don’t understand how the [neo]Christian right, those of them who openly champion BushCo, can juggle things like torture and so forth with their self-proclaimed sense of morality.
They have their little ways.
Three related ways, and, I'd think, the first line of defense: (i) don't look. Or (ii) don't believe it. Or (iii) forget it once you're told.
The brute (I use the term advisedly) facts that the administration they just elected is incarcerating people indefinitely without bringing charges, and regularly mistreating them and others--these facts can be avoided, if they just avoid reading, watching, or listening to news sources which might inconveniently bring it up. And if, when they do hear about it, they just don't think about it too hard.
Keep in mind there's a general mechanism for such situations these folk are particularly well-trained in exercising: the inverting of the usual approach to evidence and inference, in which the former precedes the latter. In certain religions (and the group you mention fits this particularly nicely), it's regularly flipped around: the evidence shall fit the pre-existing inference, or it shall be rejected.
So it's easy enough. Most of them, they've been training for this for years.
Fourth way, also probably critical here: rationalization. "It's regrettable, but a lesser evil; war's a dirty business; we need the intelligence garnered to save others" and so on...
... and never mind (i) that the very real, very deadly costs in terms of anger on the Arab street should make any sane person doubt any such alleged, (brutally) cold utility in terms of the numbers of lives saved in any case (quite regardless of the value of any alleged intelligence gathered, which, I might note, is also mere speculation, for the public, at least), and (ii) that those grisly photos are now an indelible part not just of how others see the US, but a part of what that nation actually has become now.
Which brings me to PZ's comment re "vocal disgust". I applaud him for it. It's appropriate. Nothing less would be.
Gonzales has rationalized torture. Under his aegis, the US administration has effectively made its use an officially endorsed policy.
The man is a monster. It's not too strong a word. -
What's torture and illegal war got to do with morality? As long as we condemn those gay, atheistic abortionists our consciences are clear..
#: Posted by Ian Gibson on 01/25 at 09:04 PM
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I'm with you, PZ. Unfortunately, when I wrote to my Repub senator about the matter (our Dem senator is totally wishy-washy) - and I'm generally impressed with his ethics, although we don't agree on anything - figuring, since he was a veteran, he'd surely oppose Gonzales, he wrote back, and said he'd be supporting Gonzales instead. It's not like I was in any danger of voting for him though (Richard Lugar, Indiana). Sucks to live in a red state with people who routinely defend torture and other indefensible practices. :(
#: Posted by on 01/25 at 09:34 PM
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People who think Abu Ghraib was the crime of the century haven't been paying attention.
I'd like to hear, even if meant insincerely, a double barreled objection -- don't like Abu Ghraib but don't like the fact that the Geneva Convention has never, ever protected US prisoners anywhere east of Suez.
Instead what we always get is, 'What horror, the Geneva Convention was breached!'
Not it wasn't. It never existed.
Get a grip.#: Posted by on 01/25 at 10:04 PM - I don't think anyone called AG 'the crime of the century' Harry. Nice try, no dice. It's the crime of BushCo, and anyone who apologizes for them is complicit.
- Wait a minute...your excuse is, "the other guys did it first"? I didn't accept that from my kids when they were 2 years old. The Geneva Conventions are simply commonly accepted standards for civilized behavior (as much as behavior in war can be called "civilized"). Telling me that barbarians don't pay attention to it does not pardon the US for violating it.
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Man Harry, do you grown your own straw, or can you purchase these straw men in six packs so you have one to throw out on a moments notice?
Come on 'crime of the century', really#: Posted by on 01/25 at 10:44 PM -
Some riot entertainment by Eric Schwartz:
http://jesuspe#nis.ericschwartz.com/media/video/JP_Full2.wmv
(You're going to have to remove the # from the url to make it work. ;)#: Posted by on 01/25 at 10:53 PM -
I don’t understand how the [neo]christian right, those of them who openly champion BushCo, can juggle things like torture and so forth with their self-proclaimed sense of morality.
Uh, dunking chairs, torture-until-confession, torture-until-conversion, and that goody, pretending the object of torture is not human or less than human so it doesn't really matter what you do.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/25 at 11:14 PM -
a) There is nothing in the Bible about torture. (I know, I know, Religion. But if these characters were self-consistant they'd remember the part about 'the least of my brothers' and 'Do unto others as you'd have done unto you, instead of 'He who has gold makes the rules' and ' Do unto others, before they do unto you'.)
b) It's not like they are advocating torturing some Caucasian male that is Christian and goes to the same golf club and church as they do, just anybody else. (Oksy, I'll stop using up all the snark in the blog.)#: Posted by on 01/25 at 11:15 PM -
Well, linnen, the Torah does, but not directly. It uses the example of a captured woman:
When you take the field against your enemies and Adonai your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife, you shall bring her into your house, and she shall trim her hair, pare her nails, and discard her captive's garb. She shall spend a month's time in your house lamenting her father and mother; after that you may come to her and possess her, and she shall be your wife. Then, should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell her for money: since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her. (Deuteronomy 21:10-15)
By inference, because the case of a woman is presented, typically the object of rape in war, rape often being seen by men as a survivable and hence acceptable thing, the sages have concluded one must treat male prisoners well.
It's not consistent because there are other passages which argue for the annihilation of all male captives. This kind of stark inconsistency is one reason Jews have Talmud and is powerful evidence the Bible wasn't intended to be taken literally.
Israel used to torture prisoners in "ticking bomb" cases to extract information. The country's Supreme Court has ruled on and outlawed all such practices because of what Talmud says on the matter.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/25 at 11:27 PM -
Speaking of taking and keeping mates, returning for a moment to the purpose of this blog, there's a lizard, Uta stansburiana, which poses a conundrum for standard population dominence models. It has an evolutionarily stable cyclic mixed equilibrium:
Uta stansburiana has three types of male with different mating strategies (they are conveniently distinguished by their throat color). Type A keeps one female and guards it closely; type B keeps several females, and necessarily guards them less closely; and C guards no female at all and looks out for sneaky matings with unguarded females. The three types can invade each other cyclically. (Hofbauer, Sigmund, Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics, page xxiv)
A and B can enter a C population at will, since C males don't guard their females at all. A can snatch and protect females from B populations. But C can have sneaky matings with harems of A or B, although more likely B. B might not do well invading A.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/25 at 11:44 PM -
I don’t even understand how we can be talking about this. Before the election, the words “Abu Ghraib” were such a crystal-clear condemnation of the Bush administration, that I simply could not believe the man would be elected.
You Demi’s were hoping it was a crystal-clear condemnation, weren’t ya? But as usual, it’s just another case of over connecting the dots.
Even now I’m at a loss to grasp how people with even a shred of conscience could vote for a regime that endorsed torture.
Making naked men pile up in a big “pig pile” while having their picture taken isn’t exactly torture. A little embarrassing, but definitely not torture. Take a gander at Saddam Hussein’s “Buried in the Sand” footage or al-Zarqawi’s little snuff films and you will soon learn what torture is.
Well, maybe I can faintly see that people might think that Bush was stronger on defense, and could elect the administration while deploring some of their actions. It seems to me, though, that even those who endorse the larger policies of Bush should at least be willing to speak out against the details. And Gonzales is such a detail. Gonzales should have had the role of being Bush’s legal conscience, the quiet voice at his shoulder that says, “this is wrong.” Instead, he’s been an abettor—from damning the condemned in Texas with his silence, to writing and endorsing policies that have defied civilized behavior and encouraged what can only be called evil, he’s been nothing but a banal homonculus who hasn’t even tried to speak up for what is right.
I want him out.
Terrorists and the Saddam Hussein regime holdouts should start fighting fair and stop cutting innocent people’s heads off. Imagine there’s a terror plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in Morris Minnesota. And the plot was only uncovered after the torture of a captured terrorist car bomb maker in Iraq. Would the use of torture be justified or not? Torture the terrorist, and all the people of Morris are saved. Don’t torture the terrorist, and Morris gets wiped off the map.
Of the 19 Muslim countries in the world, name one besides Afganistan and soon to be Iraq that provides democracy and freedom for its people and that doesn’t breed hate for America and the western world. Tyrannical, theocratic Muslim countries have fast become a serious danger and it’s high time we all start paying attention to this.
I’ve already written to my senators and told them that this is an issue on which I’ll tolerate no compromise. They must oppose Gonzales, or there is simply nothing they will be able to do in the next few years to convince me to vote for them.
If I had to pick one senator to support your cause, Dayton’s your boy. Unfortunelty for you, he’s a one termer and probably hard to get a hold of; afraid to go to the office “donch ya no”. Don’t count on any support from Coleman. He’s a smart guy and won’t be swayed by an irrational emotional outbreak.
This nation elected Bush. I hope they can at least speak out against one foul creature in his service.
I want more than “no” on Gonzales. I want him damned and cast out with the most vocal disgust. This is where our country could send a message that we will not condone or tolerate the inhumanity he has blandly advocated.
Being the good humanist you are, your outrage should be towards the brutal tryannical dictators and regimes of the world, who have commited thousands upon thousands of horrendous human attrocities, and not towards Christians, Republicans, and the Bush administration.
Somebody needs to get a morality checkup.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 02:29 AM -
Torture in Iraq still routine.
You've made a key error David, aside from assuming things have improved for Iraqis. You're operating under a false premise. We're not all dems. Criticizing those who lied (or were simply so incompetent they made a colossul blunder) us into a war with a price tag now closing in on 300 Billion dollars, and 12,000 KIA/WIA US Service Men and Women is not the sole purview of 'the left' any longer. Many of us on 'the right' are really disgusted as well.
Claiming someone else is a serial killer will not excuse you for beating your child in a court of Law. So pointing to oppresive regimes with the hope of making BushCo's use of torture and rape tame by comparison is an ugly, childish, tactics, that will get you no where, and never has.
Seriously pal, "Let's just go invade a country with a dictator and help those people out and pay for the whole thing no matter how much it costs' is the kind of liberal sounding pipe-dream I'd expect to come from an idealistic hippified dufus sporting a goatee, passing out flyers to a Green Peace Rally in the parking lot of Whole Foods; not something I ever thought I'd see pragmatic conservatives underwriting. That's what you've been reduced to in apologizing for this bullshit David. You're now a caricature of the ridiculous 60's hippy crowd. Totally clueless, grasping at any straw in desperation, you've embraced your own opposition. If we didn't have an enemy at large who's promised he's going to attack us over and over, it would be almost funny. -
Well David, I always considered this in terms of being an American. Torture is NOT American, nor is turning a blind-eye to it in any contry, nor is out-sourcing it so people can claim to keep their hands 'clean'!
As for mis-directed outrage, you should direct yours to politicians who do not hold the administration to their promises of freedom and liberty.
I guess the current spin point and meme is 'Being anti-toture is being objectively pro-tyranny'. Oh, and 'Black is White' is the other.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 05:36 AM -
Also being discussed at the Daily Kos.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/25/15437/3930#: Posted by on 01/26 at 05:40 AM -
linnen: learn your history - torture is American, as is trying to get around it ("raping prisoners is not really torture," "Saddam is worse," "we're only handing people to Syria"). It's been American for decades. The death squads Rumsfeld is planning for Iraq are only the latest in a series of crimes committed mostly in Latin America but not only. In Vietnam the CIA tortured 40,000 suspected Viet Cong members.
Terrorists and the Saddam Hussein regime holdouts should start fighting fair and stop cutting innocent people’s heads off. Imagine there’s a terror plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in Morris Minnesota. And the plot was only uncovered after the torture of a captured terrorist car bomb maker in Iraq. Would the use of torture be justified or not? Torture the terrorist, and all the people of Morris are saved. Don’t torture the terrorist, and Morris gets wiped off the map.
Nice story, but ticking bombs exist only in La Femme Nikita and 24. The Abu Gharib thing was torture for fun and intimidation, as is the American practice of imprisoning relatives of suspected terrorists in Iraq. Not a single bit of information was extracted from peeing on people.
Of the 19 Muslim countries in the world, name one besides Afganistan and soon to be Iraq that provides democracy and freedom for its people and that doesn’t breed hate for America and the western world.
If you think Afghanistan is free, you need a reality check. It's free compared to the Taliban, but what isn't? Women still go to jail for premarital sex there. As for democracy and freedom, Turkey's very democratic if you don't happen to be a Kurd and if you keep your mouth shut about Armenia, and Tunisia and Morocco are slowly heading in the right direction. Indonesia's civil rights situation is relatively good as long as you're not a religious or ethnic minority.
In addition, Malaysia flogs people for premarital sex but like Jordan, Egypt, and Libya, it doesn't support terrorism, and I doubt that Iran does to any measurable extent. The only Muslim states involved in international terrorism right now are Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and maybe also Syria. Lebanon is de facto a Syrian colony so it doesn't count, and whatever terrorism the PLO might sponsor is local and directed against the Israeli occupation. Saddam Hussein paid money to Palestinian suicide bombers, but that was a PR move more than anything - the Israeli media never reported a surge in Palestinian terrorism as a result of Saddam's payments, so my guess is that they never got to suicide bombers' families.
Being the good humanist you are, your outrage should be towards the brutal tryannical dictators and regimes of the world, who have commited thousands upon thousands of horrendous human attrocities, and not towards Christians, Republicans, and the Bush administration.
How about being against Islamic terrorism and against American atrocities at the same time? And in response to what will probably be your rebuttal - "this blog doesn't mention anti-American atrocities" - let me just say this: it's the dreaded local angle that makes American bloggers care about what the US does and what happens to Americans but not so much about what third-worlders do to other third-worlders. Europeans are only marginally better. The liberals in the West didn't scream against the Khmer Rouge not because they didn't care but because they didn't know. If you want a liberal who doesn't have this problem, read Riverbend, who's attacked every armed group in Iraq whose name more than 20 non-Iraqis know.
People who think Abu Ghraib was the crime of the century haven’t been paying attention.
I’d like to hear, even if meant insincerely, a double barreled objection — don’t like Abu Ghraib but don’t like the fact that the Geneva Convention has never, ever protected US prisoners anywhere east of Suez.
Put another way: genocide was common throughout the 19th century, hence the Holocaust was morally justifiable. This argument has at least the same factual backing and relevance as yours, and hence this is a very strong analogy.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 06:57 AM -
David, you're right. I had a higher opinion of Republican voters than was warranted. I won't be making that mistake again!
And you're playing the same disgusting game so many right-wingers are: pointing at the atrocities of a Saddam Hussein and saying, "we aren't as bad as he was." Can you set the bar any lower?
Our soldiers tortured and abused and humiliated and even killed prisoners. It's that simple. It is crystal clear.
Don't try to tell me it was harmless frat-boy pranks. Imagine this: French soldiers come to your house, take one of your children away, strip him naked, and sodomize him with a light stick. Are you seriously telling me you'd laugh it off?
Yes, somebody needs to get a morality check up. Mine's fine. But you disgust me. -
We did it in the past and others do it now, justifies us doing it from now on. One word: Bull! That Americans indulged in it in past does not make torture part of American values.
Torture was immoral, unethical and unAmerican in the past, is so now, and will still be in the future.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 08:13 AM -
I'm certainly no Democrat, and I've make more than one snarky political comment in this blog's comments, and I disagree with the bloggers' politics quite a lot, usually... but I have to say that, PZ, this post was terrific--every word of it--and I'm 100% behind you.
#: Posted by on 01/26 at 08:52 AM
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DS was quite thorough about this; but if one steps back and draws the comparison at responsible and civilized vs irresponsible and uncivilized then it is pretty easy to see whose side to be on.
Note, PZ encouraged voting Democrats out of office if they dont do the right thing. This is a principle that many Republicans had a hard time dealing with last November.
I once worked with women in Oregon who knew that Bob Packwood was a serial mysoginist (long before the whole world knew) but as liberals they were reluctant to vote against him because he was a strong pro-choice supporter, and his opponent at the time was a Catholic. Mind you, these were Democratic activists. Packwood played this balancing act for several more years before that very issue brought him down.
Politics is a tricky business, but it is very hard to do the right thing if you have no principles and all your choices are tactical.
David, your rationalizations are nearly as tortured than the AG prisoners.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 10:33 AM -
Torture is wrong for two reasons: It's immoral and it's incapable of providing reliable information. Ane while some Americans have practiced it in the past, it is nonetheless antithetical to this country's mores and traditions. Anyone who thinks otherwise knows little of our history. That being the case to nominate a person who has condoned it to the highest legal office in the country is contrary to our American ideals and should be blocked. Isn't it ironic that the politicians who self label themselves as Christian are the very one who think torture is fine? Of course, then through history the idea of being moral and Christian were often incompatible.
Speaking of Gonzales, he may have graduated from Rice and Harvard Law, but that doesn't make him wise. The public evidence certainly proves the contrary.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 10:34 AM -
Setting aside for a moment DS's hysterical allegation of Bush rape (that's a Dem specialty in the WH, I think), lets put Abu Ghraib on the Torture-O-Meter against, oh, let's say, a Shrine initiation in Long Island.
This is an unscale scale, so I won't assign a number, but -- ding, ding, DING! They're the same!
What went on at Abu G. may have been deplorable, inefficient, impolitic and tasteless, but as torture it's just slightly against the 'institutional violence' of denying poor black kids a free private college education.
And, yes, I think it fair to say that Abu G. has been portrayed as the crime of the century. Name one that has been attacked more violently.
PZ, name somebody else you've named for a purge.
The Geneva Convention is not, never has been a statement of civilized behavior. One thing and one thing only protects one country's war prisoners from mistreatment by the other side: the threat that it'll happen to their own guys.
That only works if the prisoner-holding power cares anything about the fate of its own. Asians don't. Therefore, American prisoners have never been protected either by a convention or by accepted standards of civilized conduct.
Like Alon says, it ought not to be impossible to criticize both sides at the same time, although it might raise uncomfortable questions about, in fact, equivalence.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 11:03 AM -
They rape people at Shriner's conventions?
They kill people at Shriner's conventions?
The attendees at Shriner's conventions are dragged unwillingly and at gunpoint out of their homes to go to them?
I give up. The right wing is morally blind, a gang of scoundrels and thugs who deserve nothing but contempt. -
Imagine there’s a terror plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in Morris Minnesota. And the plot was only uncovered after the torture of a captured terrorist car bomb maker in Iraq.
If such a threat developed, the blame would be squarely that of the United States government, for:
(a) it has avoided being serious about curtailing nuclear proliferation, including repeatedly failing to sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, continuing to pursue nuclear weapons on its own, failing to reduce the nuclear stockpile, and leaving a back door for reconstituting the nuclear weapons it has supposedly scrapped;
(b) failing to provide Russia and other member states of the ex-Soviet Union the economic and other assistance they need to move towards a proper capitalism and democracy (supporting freedom everywhere it wants to be, right), and thereby reducing the incentive to market nuclear materials;
(c) failing to provide leadership showing that there are other and better ways of convincing people internationally than strong-arming them into submission;
(d) failing to provide a rapid and adequate plan with appropriate funding for collecting, transporting, and disposing of nuclear materials in widespread use in the United States, such as at hospitals and nuclear power plants, but primarily at hospitals; and
(e) failing to demand so-called allied states in the war on terror that scientists, engineers, and others strongly suspected of facilitating the proliferation of nuclear bomb-making and allied technologies be extradited and brought to justice in ways comparable to members of al-Queda.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/26 at 11:15 AM -
What went on at Abu G. may have been deplorable, inefficient, impolitic and tasteless, but as torture it’s just slightly against the ‘institutional violence’ of denying poor black kids a free private college education.
I think peeing on prisoners, raping them, destroying their biological clocks, and chaining them by the neck counts as torture, don't you?
We did it in the past and others do it now, justifies us doing it from now on. One word: Bull!
I don't think it justifies Abu Gharib. If it had been up to me Bush would've been in prison for war crimes beginning roughly in the summer of 2003. I do think you need to realize that Bush isn't inventing this or anything. The hypocrisy that torture is okay as long as the US government is not the one directly doing it has a long history in the USA, and to brush it up on the grounds that "it's un-American" smacks of defining un-American as "anything I strongly disagree with."#: Posted by on 01/26 at 11:45 AM -
Alon,
We have an old saw 'Might makes Right' which is now fully operational in Shrub's government. Most civilized people use the saying with a bit of irony thrown in. Shrub thinks it is a utopian vision.
And I agree, impeachment and criminal proceedings were, and still are in order.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 11:53 AM -
The problem here is that some people can't understand that we have a double standard operating in this situation.
But it's a GOOD double standard: You hold yourself to a higher level of responsibility than you do others.
I continue to believe that we Americans have a lot of very high ideals, and when we don't live up to those ideals of justice, fairness, compassion, etc., it's a failure worth pointing out in extremely strong terms. Otherwise ... goodbye high ideals, goodbye America.
There's even a second tier to this double standard: Not only do we Americans have to hold ourselves to a higher standard of ethical responsibility than we do anybody else, we have to hold our leaders to a higher standard than we do private citizens.
There's a helluva difference between the moral and ethical responsibilities of the President of the United States of America and those of some pissant dictator of a third world country.
Here's my take on the aforementioned "extremely strong terms":
Those of you who continue to argue that it's unfair to lambast Bush and the U.S. military for torture because such things happen all the time in third world countries are -- listen closely now -- NOT GOOD AMERICANS.
You accept all the benefits of living in America, but you betray the core of it -- the ethical philosophy, the acceptance of responsibility -- that makes it work.
If you really did grow up in the U.S., I'm wondering how you could live here so long in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave and still FAIL TO FUCKING UNDERSTAND IT.
Rather than Americans, you fellas put me in mind of a bunch of brainless roosters, crowing "Not our fault! Not our fault! Everybody does it! Everybody does it!"
And you know all those brave American men and women who died in all the wars that REALLY had something to do with freedom and democracy? You're a traitor to THEM. You spit on their sacrifice.
Because you're willing to compromise on torture.
Because you're too stupid and cowardly to demand something better. -
Alon,
I think you and I are communicating past each other, not with each other. Your last post certainly threw me for a loop.
I wrote, in the post you quoted from;
Torture was immoral, unethical and unAmerican in the past, is so now, and will still be in the future.
Then you wrote, and I am assuming the sentence above is where you got the unAmerican part;
to brush it up on the grounds that “it’s un-American” smacks of defining un-American as “anything I strongly disagree with.”
WTF?
I am going to shout this next part in block-caps so there will be no misunderstanding.
THERE. IS. NO. JUSTIFICATION. FOR. TORTURE.
There is no justification in any ethical system I know of. There is no justification in any SANE moral system I know of. (Examples such the Aztecs and the Holy Inquisition I consider as pathological, and will dismiss out of hand.)
There is no justification in current American values. (You want to talk lynchings and hate-crimes? Fine then. Torture is not justified in MY understanding of American Values.) And torture is unAmerican because it has no place in any decent American's self-image or value set.
Being against torture is a MORAL ABSOLUTE. One cannot point to the past to be able to justify it. One cannot point to other people to be able to justify it. One cannot point to 'sub-humans' (because there ain't no such creature) to justify it. All the hypothetical doomsday scenerios in the world cannot justify torture.
And trying to equate my 'torture is unAmerican' to the right wing blow-hards' 'liberal traitor'-style 'disagreements' is making you read like some of the political trolls infesting liberal blogs.
If this was not your intent I will apologize, but right now I feel that I am the one who is owed an apology.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 12:45 PM -
linnen, I think he just missed the irony in your post. At least that is they way I read it.
#: Posted by on 01/26 at 01:06 PM
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Most likely so. It is just that the part of defining unAmerican as 'anything I disagree with' is so O'Reilly et al. that the thought that I what I wrote could be compared to these people sets my teeth on edge.
#: Posted by on 01/26 at 01:49 PM
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#23 :"Take a gander at Saddam Hussein’s “Buried in the Sand” footage or al-Zarqawi’s little snuff films and you will soon learn what torture is."
When you have to justify our actions by comparing them to those of Saddam and Al-Zarqawi, you have LOST YOUR MORALITY. -
Linen - thank you for shouting. I completely agree, so I am going to join the chorus. I doubt any of those sick f**s who are torture apologists will listen, but I'm so angry I feel the need to yell.
TORTURE IS WRONG!
PERIOD!
Why is this so hard for the so-called "moralists" to see?
I get so freakin' SICK of people trying to justify it, explain it, qualify it, etc. Some things are just _wrong_ and torture is one of them.
Thanks for the post, PZ -- I'm now inspired to write fierce letters _by hand_ to my Senators, or at least Feinstein. Boxer gets a lovely card. I am so thankful for her (which is rather sad, if you think of it -- being thankful that someone is doing her job...)#: Posted by on 01/26 at 04:54 PM -
Slate has a report on a government report that is at least weakly connected with this topic:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2112697/
This report indicates that the US may lose its position of global dominance within about 15 years. It indicates that the US cannot advance Bush's freedom and democracy campaign while ruining the country and what it stands for; who would want to follow a country that rapes its legacy for short-term personal gain, much less one that condones torture of dark-skinned people, the very people we want to bring our Wild-West, gun-slingin' freedom to. Oh yes, we are the ones that Middle Easterners and Southeast Asians are going to look to for a model of governance.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 06:02 PM -
At least congrats are due to Dayton on the Rice vote, though I am highly disappointed in the total no votes. The committe vote on Gonzales appear to foretell a stronger presence on that one.
No 13
Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Dayton (D-MN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Harkin (D-IA)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Reed (D-RI)#: Posted by on 01/26 at 08:07 PM -
PZ, the number of people killed at Abu Ghraib and at US Shriner initiations over the past two years is just about equal.
You guys need to get out more.
Killing is bad, wrong etc. But there's more torture in American Roman Catholic rectories than in Iraq these days.
What Gonzales's memo purported to justify was not murder but activities that American teenagers submit to freely to join fraternities.
Stop cheapening 'torture.' Save the word. You're gonna need it later.#: Posted by on 01/26 at 09:27 PM -
Harry, it is probably pointless to argue with you, but the fact that someone dies at a Shriner initiation does not justify the systematic mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq. They are two very different things. One is an accident. The other is a government policy. One is unintentional. The other is intentional. Do you think you could get away with your reasoning in court if you were charged with killing someone - "Well, more people die in traffic accident than I ever killed."
#: Posted by on 01/26 at 09:49 PM
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This and the rest of this horror is probably why the U.S. government opposed signing up for allowing U.S. soldiers and sailors being tried in The Hague for war crimes.
There's a basic value in Judaism which cuts through a lot of this: Don't tell me what you believe. Show me how you act. If you don't act righteously, it doesn't matter to me or God what you believe.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/26 at 10:06 PM -
Y'know, in retrospect, I think many Americans, myself included, are a bunch of lily-livered chickens. After the outrage of September 11th, we essentially empowered BushCo to do anything it wanted, without reason or limits. And it did. But the responsibility is ours.
We need to take that authorization back, but it's so much harder now that the horse is out of the barn.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/26 at 10:10 PM -
I am going to shout this next part in block-caps so there will be no misunderstanding.
THERE. IS. NO. JUSTIFICATION. FOR. TORTURE.
Have you ever watched La Femme Nikita? There is a moral system there that empowers the entire Section One apparatus, complete with torture, assassination, and murder of innocent civilians. It's called situational ethics, I believe, but you can also use plain utilitarianism. The argument goes that if you have a ticking bomb, it's acceptable to torture someone who knows how to defuse it and won't tell you otherwise. And I actually agree with this argument, but for the fact that in reality there are no ticking bombs.
Now, the torture-for-fun thing is not random, either. It's not just some psychos in the army who decided to make an NC-17 movie. It's a CIA directive that Rumsfeld probably knew about. The reason they did that, I guess, is to intimidate Iraqis who didn't support the US occupation. Hence there're arrest of family members, torture, and planned death squads. And while you may find this deplorable, it only means it's against your values, not against general American values. There is a certain double standard in the USA, whereby Americans deserve all the constitutional protections there can be and then some more, but third-worlders are untermenschen, torturing whom is acceptable especially given that they're "related to terrorism."
Most likely so. It is just that the part of defining unAmerican as ‘anything I disagree with’ is so O’Reilly et al. that the thought that I what I wrote could be compared to these people sets my teeth on edge.
I know it is. But sometimes things liberals say sound exactly like what vitriolic conservatives say.#: Posted by on 01/27 at 12:00 AM -
And while you may find this deplorable, it only means it’s against your values, not against general American values. There is a certain double standard in the USA, whereby Americans deserve all the constitutional protections there can be and then some more, but third-worlders are untermenschen, torturing whom is acceptable especially given that they’re “related to terrorism.”
If that is really true then it is additional evidence the American experiment with democracy and its republic have failed. For, rather than being a universal system, it is peculiar to these shores and depends upon decidedly non-democratic and un-American processes for its survival. This was done once when we were in a Cold War against an arch-enemy that threatened our survival. It is being done again against a "shadowy" network of terrorists. In both cases rather than pursuing democracy, it means propping up dictatorships and enabling "disappearances" and all that.
Claim all you want that these are necessary means for survival. But if they are, the American values system is a farce because it can only secure itself by using these methods elsewhere.
And the BushCo business about supporting liberty everywhere is just propaganda.
So, do you think Lincoln was completely off the mark when he spoke that the only way Americans would lose their freedom is if it was lost by ourselves here, that no enemy could possibly deprive us of it?
The problem is, if there are circumstances it can be justified elsewhere, there are circumstances it can be justified here.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/27 at 01:13 AM -
In both cases rather than pursuing democracy, it means propping up dictatorships and enabling “disappearances” and all that.
Exactly. One of the points that people who are very pro-American about international relations because "The USA is free" fail to get is that with the US, the principle is that inside the US and its first world allies there's plenty of freedom, but in the third world its policy is indistinguishable from this of communists and terrorists, at least in its morality - strategy is not an issue here. American foreign policy has an awful lot of War is Peace and Freedom is Slavery components in it and to some extent Ignorance is Strength.
And the BushCo business about supporting liberty everywhere is just propaganda.
What do you expect Bush to say - "We are murdering Iraqis left and right and oppressing them as much as Saddam did but without the added benefit of public order"? Iraqis know it's true, but enough Americans don't, so they support the occupation. As I said before, part of this American attitude to oppression is not knowing that the USA is capable of being that bad, so even if such people do learn about American atrocities, they can think that overall the USA helps Iraqi freedom.
So, do you think Lincoln was completely off the mark when he spoke that the only way Americans would lose their freedom is if it was lost by ourselves here, that no enemy could possibly deprive us of it?
He wasn't, because the current global power structure will not allow an external enemy to subdue the USA. 9/11 was nice fireworks, but comparing it to, say, Pearl Harbor, ignores the fact that Japan was far stronger than Al Qaida can ever be. There are several possible power blocs that can be very strong in the 21st century:
1. The EU, which doesn't deprive people of their freedom, but might let other people deprive others of their freedom through inaction. The soft power it exercises does not deprive people of liberty, and even if it does, it makes them deprive themselves of it.
2. China, which will not be able to subject the West to anything like the tribute system of Imperial China because it will face at least the USA and the EU combined, probably also Latin America, and maybe even India.
3. A unified Islamic bloc spanning something like a triangle whose corners are in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. This bloc will be a major risk to everyone in the area, but at the moment Islamism transforms itself into a concrete state, the USA's nuclear arsenal becomes an issue. In this case the only deprivation of freedom can come from within, that is from Muslim immigrants, but unless this bloc is very weak or nonexistent just not enough of them will come - not even to Europe, despite stupidities like the "Europe 2015" map.
4. India, which is just too regional to care about the internal politics of the USA. Its most fanatical nationalists only want to annex Pakistan and Bangladesh and to be more assertive toward China, but the USA is too far away.#: Posted by on 01/27 at 07:43 AM -
Newly emerging world powers don't have to subjugate or even threaten the US militarily. All they have to do is outcompete the US for exports, prestige and the offer of security and stability without overt domination to provide a better model for other parts of the world. If the US is seen as a weakening bully, who will want to emulate our system? If China is seen as a world-class economic power that can provide stability to SE Asia without the threat of invasion, why wouldn't the nations of SE Asia turn to them? Latin America has resented the US for at least a hundred years because our foreign policy has offered the threat of invasion rather than the possibility of freedom and respect. We have treated Central and South America as our own sandbox. I expect the larger countries of S America not to be especially friendly towards the US, as opposed to other power blocks, when they emerge into power blocks of their own.
#: Posted by on 01/27 at 08:57 AM
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Does anyone here NOT remember when the pundits of the rights were decrying the moral relativism of their opponents on the left?
Now we are getting a taste of just how 'absolute' the morals are of these people.#: Posted by on 01/27 at 09:35 AM -
linnen,
some of us are old bastards and of course we remember ... but then we would only have to remember back to say, the Clinton presidency.
As I said before, who are the responsible and civilized now?
Free campaign theme for the takin' .... When Rice and Gonzales are the best you can do, you dont deserve to run the country.#: Posted by on 01/27 at 10:13 AM -
Well, DD, I am old enough to remember before any pictures came out of A. Ghraib, but when pictures of shirtless Iraqi prisoners were shown on television and the cry went out, 'Violation of the Geneva Convention, assault on human rights! Bush is a war criminal!'
War is a bad thing.
Our war in Iraq is the most genteel war, from our side, that I can think of since the 18th century.
Maybe we shouldn't have gone in. (My position is we didn't have enough infantry to finish the work, which turned out to be the correct assessment.) That's a thing.
Bush = Hitler is another thing.
I tend to tune out people who cannot make more subtle distinctions than that.#: Posted by on 01/27 at 12:19 PM -
Our war in Iraq is the most genteel war, from our side, that I can think of since the 18th century.
Compared to the destruction of Vietnam and the imprecision bombing of Iraq during the Gulf War, everything that doesn't involve a Holocaust is gentle. Anyway, in Afghanistan the USA never did anything like Abu Gharib or the destruction of Fallujah.#: Posted by on 01/27 at 12:49 PM -
Harry, I think there is a subtle distinction between comparing Bush to Hiter, and comparing the words of Bush to the words of Hitler. In some cases they sound eerily alike.
Oh, yes, war is a bad thing, not a thing to be gone into lightly and for no reason. "Bring 'em on!" he said. What kind of perfectly irresponsible thing is that to say? What lack of concern for the soldiers who are actually putting their lives on the line, while the CinC flits about with his rich friends? Oh, yes, war is a bad thing, but in this case, those who caused it do not suffer the consequences.#: Posted by on 01/27 at 01:42 PM -
The victims of Abu Ghraib were tortured.
Anyone who says otherwise is lying, and anyone who tries to rationalize it is a soulless barbarian.
They were punched, beaten, tied into painful positions, denied sleep, and underwent mock electrocutions. They were bitten by attack dogs while naked and shackled. They were sexually abused, raped, and murdered.
And about 90% of them weren't even enemy soldiers, but random innocents swept off the streets in much the same way that you may have been pulled aside from an airport security line for a baggage examination.
I always knew Saddam Hussein was evil. Too bad that our prolonged and pointless war crime has shown me that America can be evil too. That is the true cost of the arrogance and inhumanity of the Busheviks. Damn them all to hell.#: Posted by on 01/27 at 01:48 PM -
... or the destruction of Fallujah.
A destruction or "reduction" of a town may be militarily necessary but that demonstrates a limitation of military power, not a plus. Those setting strategy who don't appreciate those limits are simply ignorant. It's their job to avoid getting into these situations.
Abu Ghraib is many things but it and Guantanamo Bay are indications of strategic military cowardice. I no longer think Iraq was a good idea. I think it was a mistake. I supported it initially. I was hornswoggled. *But*, if one is going to do an occupation, from a military perspective, there is no politically easy way to do it and not end up with opposition. Speaking for the moment from a purely military perspective, not a moral one (they *are* different), one offers the carrot of generous terms if an opponent capitulates, carries through on those faithfully, and then uses utter brutality when invading(*). The facts are, there are things acceptable on the battlefield which are not acceptable off of it. But, of course, use of such tactics denies the advance intelligence. And, while the war is still on, a president can't claim in a photo-op that victory is won. If you can't accept the political consequences domestically and internationally from "doing it right", it shouldn't even be considered.
The "cowardice" I refer to is that BushCo wanted it both ways, wanted to get the intelligence, wanted to seem they were being sensitive and such in "public", and thought they could get away with far worse in hidden places.
Once hostilities are declared as ceased, then necessarily things have to change. In addition to the failure of insufficient troops, the military has also retired much of their MP corps whose job it specifically was to police and protect and transition a war zone into civilian functioning. Most of the soldiers needed to be MPs off the cuff, and you just aren't. Most MPs, especially if National Guard, are detectives and state police guys and have lots of training in social work and the like.
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(*) I know PZ will probably vehemently disagree with this, because of his other posts, but during a formal war and as long as troops are versed in the language and sensitive to the local culture, I have no problem with killing civilians who refuse to stop at a checkpoint, no matter who they might be. However terrible this might be, it is war. While the UK has had their embarrassment, too, the Dragoons in the Shiite sectors and towns were a much more sociable success because of these policies.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/27 at 02:55 PM -
(*) I know PZ will probably vehemently disagree with this, because of his other posts, but during a formal war and as long as troops are versed in the language and sensitive to the local culture, I have no problem with killing civilians who refuse to stop at a checkpoint, no matter who they might be.
I can kind of understand this, but in Iraq, US soldiers shoot at civilians who don't stop at stop signs written only in English.#: Posted by on 01/27 at 11:22 PM -
I can kind of understand this, but in Iraq, US soldiers shoot at civilians who don’t stop at stop signs written only in English.
Yeah, Alon, that's clearly unacceptable and it's the reason why I mentioned the MPs and the British Dragoons experience. MPs always know the language of the natives. And the Dragoons have far more translators per soldier -- even some of the soldiers themselves -- than U.S. troops do.
Also, technically, Iraq is no longer a war zone so the rules then need to change. (I know, you wouldn't know it, would you?) It's one thing to kill civilians in a free fire war zone, it's another during a sort-of "peace". Different rules apply. Frankly, if it results in more soldiers getting killed, all that means is the "peace" was declared prematurely.
I know all this will sound very theoretical but it's actually based upon basic military science stuff. The point of a war is to convince the other side they cannot win and bring them to the negotiating table. Technically, if there's noone to negotiate with it cannot be a war, no matter what BushCo says. It's a policing problem.
Of course, it doesn't help that BushCo and Iraqi surrogates simply will not negotiate with "the insurgents" under any circumstances. Real diplomats can negotiate anything.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/28 at 12:08 AM -
MPs always know the language of the natives.
In addition to avoiding taking "the peacekeeping mission" seriously for two decades, what geniuses failed to recognize that, uh, it might be important to have a chunk of the troops learn Arabic? I mean, how long have we had a presence in Saudi Arabia and in the Sinai?#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 01/28 at 12:11 AM -
Jan, one of the things I've noticed over the years is a tendency among advocates of this-policy-or-that to take the present moment as the only one that has bearing on a policy decision. Some of my strongest objections to certain policies are based on the reality that there are a lot of other, previous, moments that should be figured in.
I appreciate and agree with a great deal of the things you say, but I'm having trouble with the idea of killing civilian bystanders in a war ... simply because I know that there's a lot of buildup, a great number of actions and decision-points, that go into the creating of a state of war.
In this "war" in particular, considering what led up to it, the lies and deception, I have to say I believe that EVERY civilian casualty is unnecessary. And, in some nontrivial senses, yes, the moral equivalent of premeditated murder.
Why, after all, is it a horrifying crime for a couple of men on a city street to shoot to death the parents of an 7-year-old girl while she sits in the back seat of the car and witnesses it, but it all becomes just some sort of "regrettable incident" when it happens in "war"?
Even aside from that, there are little alarms bells that go off in my head when I hear anything that can be loosely translated to: It's perfectly okay to kill people under certain conditions.
