I listened to some bonehead from the CIA on NPR this afternoon and he used the old canard, “Shouldn’t we use torture if we can save American lives?” He took it that his statement was inarguable.
I strongly disagree. I grew up in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I’m getting very tired of being told to be afraid. When I was growing up, I knew how I was probably going to die- a nuclear apocalypse of a war between the US and Soviet Union. Who's afraid of some rogue regime or band of zealots?
What’s the worst case scenario? A nuclear weapon takes out a million Americans? Let’s say 3 million. That’s one percent of the US population.
I would rather face a one percent chance of dying in a terror attack than live in a country that tortures people. The same goes for wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus and the atrocities of Abu Graib. The next person that tells me, “But they cut heads off!” is going to get smacked. Let’s be brave again instead of scared.
I am not even vaguely fearful of terrorist attack.
I am terrified by the current administration.
I don’t want to be protected like this.
Stop being scared.
4 comments:
I have reached the same conclusion from a different perspective.
Because I believe in certain absolutes, it is absolutely and always wrong to torture, regardless of the consequences.
To do otherwise is the definition of situational ethics.
Interesting.
I am currently in the midst of a unit on the Constitution and citizenship with my students and with every article we discuss I am increasingly ashamed at the over reaching power of the current administration.
This torture nonsense is yet another symptom.
Good idea with the blog.
You don't believe in situational ethics? If your daughter was sick and you couldn't afford the medicine needed but had opportunity to steal it, would you?
I don't think it's a matter of opinion that president Bush should be tried for war crimes. After WWII, Nazi officers were tried, found guilty, and subsequently put to death for authorizing and administering the exact same torture techniques that Bush has authorized. I believe that we also did the same with Japanese officers.
With that said, I'm not so sure that this tactic is anything unique to this administration. Lincoln waged war against his own citizens, killing a significant portion of them and destroying 50% of the American economy in the process. Woodrow Wilson, a progressive democrat, got the US involved in WWI, and re-defined American foreign policy to be the aggressive, nation-building policy that we have had ever since. FDR, another progressive democrat, got the US involved in WWII. Harry Truman, yet another progressive democrat, led us into the Korean War. 55 years later, our troops are still stationed there. LBJ, progressive democrat, got us into Vietnam. Bill Clinton authorized more military interventions in foreign countries than any other president since WWII. His sanctions against Iraq killed millions of innocent women and children, and incited widespread hatred of the US throughout the Middle East. You might even recall that during Bill's presidency, the primary job of Al Gore was to run around the country and drum up support for military action against Iraq. He even stated, "Our goal for Iraq is regime change."
The reason I say all of that is because the US has had an aggressive foreign policy dictated largely by the military industrial complex ever since Woodrow Wilson. All presidential administrations have followed it. We also have a CIA that operates more like a secret government than an actual intelligence-gathering organization.
Our broken foreign policy is also the primary reason why I can actually get excited about Ron Paul. He's the only candidate who opposed the War in Iraq from the start, voted against the Patriot Act, and has vowed to never restrict our civil liberties, particularly habeous corpus. He's the only one who actually talks about not just immediately ending the War in Iraq, but also bringing troops home from all over the globe, and closing our unconstitutional military bases that are currently placed in well over 100 foreign countries. He is the only person who actually is advocating a different foreign policy than what we've had since 1913.
I missed you Ben. How's fatherhood?
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