I've repeated - I don't know how many times - before that we don't do the things we do because of who "they" are but because of who we are. Dick Cheney insists to this day that, because it yielded actionable intelligence, our torture of prisoners was justified. I think we all need to think about who we are and what, if anything, we stand for.
The Geneva Conventions are pretty clear that placing someone in fear for their life or of being maimed is considered torture throughout the world. We can call it 'aggressive interrogation' if we want to, but in the World Court it's called torture. People who torture are criminals. In fact, given that it's hard to think of anything more terrifying than being killed or maimed, it could be argued that people who torture are terrorists... terrorist organizations... state sponsored terrorism.
We did it. We need to face that we did it, and we need to stop doing it. I was going to say that we need to promise not to do it again, but historically we are also faithless liars. (Seriously, sending prisoners to countries where we know they will be tortured and then using the resulting intelligence makes us what?)
Does the end justify the means? If it does then any behavior can be justifed by a successful outcome. Is that who we are? It kind of looks like that's who we are.
Showing posts with label Humanitarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humanitarianism. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Monday, January 05, 2009
Reflection on Gaza
It's in my heart to say something about what's happening in Gaza. I am - praying, if you will - for the people of Israel at this time because I'm afraid that they've lost their way and that they're amassing some really horrible karma.
I think I can see their frustration with the terrorists blindly firing rockets over the fence into Israel, but it's Israel's fence and I think they have a responsibility for the custody of the people confined within it. I try to imagine circumstances - levels of gang activity, etc. - that would justify putting walls around an entire population and then directing fire on them with bombs and artillery, and I can't get there. We don't do this in prison riots where everybody in there is presumably guilty of something.
What is Israel's objective? The Hamas militants firing those rockets are criminals whose objective is to destabilize the relationship between Israel and the Arab world. As with our response to 9/11, certainly Israel has been provoked; but will their response advance their objectives or Hamas'. What is being created inside that fence? Peace?
L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa, whose sincerity on any topic is open to question, spoke today of the fear in the eyes of Israeli children. Children within the Gaza perimeter have reportedly stopped reacting to incoming strikes because there is no break. Will these children be able to live together when this is finished?
There's an expression I remember from my younger days: "Kill them all and let God sort them out." I understand where that comes from, but it has never, ever led to lasting peace.
I think I can see their frustration with the terrorists blindly firing rockets over the fence into Israel, but it's Israel's fence and I think they have a responsibility for the custody of the people confined within it. I try to imagine circumstances - levels of gang activity, etc. - that would justify putting walls around an entire population and then directing fire on them with bombs and artillery, and I can't get there. We don't do this in prison riots where everybody in there is presumably guilty of something.
What is Israel's objective? The Hamas militants firing those rockets are criminals whose objective is to destabilize the relationship between Israel and the Arab world. As with our response to 9/11, certainly Israel has been provoked; but will their response advance their objectives or Hamas'. What is being created inside that fence? Peace?
L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa, whose sincerity on any topic is open to question, spoke today of the fear in the eyes of Israeli children. Children within the Gaza perimeter have reportedly stopped reacting to incoming strikes because there is no break. Will these children be able to live together when this is finished?
There's an expression I remember from my younger days: "Kill them all and let God sort them out." I understand where that comes from, but it has never, ever led to lasting peace.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Basic Principles
I told someone recently that we don't do the right thing because of who they are... We do the right thing because of who we are. When I was a child I learned that principle as the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
I bring this up because I saw this piece on the Administration resisting limits on the torture of detainees.
I know... really... that one can obtain information by torture. Everyone knows that. Saddam Hussein knows that, Stalin knew that, Hitler knew that, Tojo knew that... you get the picture?
I understand that sometimes good information is urgently needed to preserve life... I understand the horrible temptations to sink to their level.
Would someone remind me, please? "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
I bring this up because I saw this piece on the Administration resisting limits on the torture of detainees.
I know... really... that one can obtain information by torture. Everyone knows that. Saddam Hussein knows that, Stalin knew that, Hitler knew that, Tojo knew that... you get the picture?
I understand that sometimes good information is urgently needed to preserve life... I understand the horrible temptations to sink to their level.
Would someone remind me, please? "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Thoughts on Personal Accountability
My wife is pretty sure that some of our Southern California neighbors are the most stupid people in the world.
She was sympathetic toward the families whose homes were buried in mud in La Conchita yesterday... until she learned that the families had refused evacuation the day before... and that the same thing had happened eight or ten years ago.
She was sympathetic toward the family trapped in a cabin up in San Dimas Canyon... especially when the rescue inflatable flipped the six-month old into the water... again until she learned that the parents had refused evacuation the day before... at which point we pretty much agreed that society's responsibility ended with saving the child.
The guy whose mobile home fell into the river... who was angry that the mobile home park hadn't been allowed to put up a retaining wall eight years before... and who was angry that he was uninsured for flood damage because he lived on the bank of a river expected to flood?
The Palmdale residents who drove around and through road closure signs and barricades because "that's the way we do things in Palmdale?"
The guy who disappeared while attempting to swim the flood channel on a dare?
By the way, the remaining homeowners in the La Conchita area... under the hillside with a great big crack in the earth at the top... are still refusing evacuation.
In fairness, my wife's family does have a small mobile home on the water on the Florida gulf coast... but they weren't actually in that mobile during any of the four hurricanes that came through last year.
Okay... she's right again. It would make a lot more sense to just have those people sign waivers that public safety personnel don't have to risk their lives to try to pull them out the next day and then give them their signs... you know Bill Engvall's signs?
Okay... having said all of that... we don't do what's right because of who they are. We do what's right because of who we are.
She was sympathetic toward the families whose homes were buried in mud in La Conchita yesterday... until she learned that the families had refused evacuation the day before... and that the same thing had happened eight or ten years ago.
She was sympathetic toward the family trapped in a cabin up in San Dimas Canyon... especially when the rescue inflatable flipped the six-month old into the water... again until she learned that the parents had refused evacuation the day before... at which point we pretty much agreed that society's responsibility ended with saving the child.
The guy whose mobile home fell into the river... who was angry that the mobile home park hadn't been allowed to put up a retaining wall eight years before... and who was angry that he was uninsured for flood damage because he lived on the bank of a river expected to flood?
The Palmdale residents who drove around and through road closure signs and barricades because "that's the way we do things in Palmdale?"
The guy who disappeared while attempting to swim the flood channel on a dare?
By the way, the remaining homeowners in the La Conchita area... under the hillside with a great big crack in the earth at the top... are still refusing evacuation.
In fairness, my wife's family does have a small mobile home on the water on the Florida gulf coast... but they weren't actually in that mobile during any of the four hurricanes that came through last year.
Okay... she's right again. It would make a lot more sense to just have those people sign waivers that public safety personnel don't have to risk their lives to try to pull them out the next day and then give them their signs... you know Bill Engvall's signs?
Okay... having said all of that... we don't do what's right because of who they are. We do what's right because of who we are.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Thoughts on Acceptance
This morning the first article I glanced at dealt with civilization's growing acceptance of... may I say indifference toward... catastrophe. As the numbers grow and grow they become numbing. Christopher Dickey went on to say that perhaps that was why people had stopped talking about the 1340+ killed in Iraq.
160,000 deaths is almost impossible to grasp... I've been to Sri Lanka and Phu Ket and it's still hard to get my consciousness around it... but because I've been there I can reflect on a personal level. Last Sunday's For Better or For Worse strip came to mind... I can think about a Sri Lankan and his family... the employees in the restaurant in Phu Ket where I had my first live lobster tossed into a pot... much as they probably were.
1340+ deaths in Iraq... probably fewer than died in traffic accidents in the U.S. last month... but for most of us... other than for 1340+ families it isn't personal. It's personal to the soldier who was hanging upside down in the Humvee next to her buddy, the driver who didn't make it. It's personal to the soldier who covered the memorial services in Mosul.
We don't even talk about the Iraqi casualties... but it's personal for an Iraqi (and this one).
I think what bothers me isn't so much that in 2004 a major earthquake and tsunami can kill 160,000+ people... that's plate tectonics but the victims and their survivors need our prayers certainly... but it would be such a shame if Mr. Dickey is correct that we have become numb to the loss of life in conflict waged on our behalf. We aren't like that, are we? Please?
160,000 deaths is almost impossible to grasp... I've been to Sri Lanka and Phu Ket and it's still hard to get my consciousness around it... but because I've been there I can reflect on a personal level. Last Sunday's For Better or For Worse strip came to mind... I can think about a Sri Lankan and his family... the employees in the restaurant in Phu Ket where I had my first live lobster tossed into a pot... much as they probably were.
1340+ deaths in Iraq... probably fewer than died in traffic accidents in the U.S. last month... but for most of us... other than for 1340+ families it isn't personal. It's personal to the soldier who was hanging upside down in the Humvee next to her buddy, the driver who didn't make it. It's personal to the soldier who covered the memorial services in Mosul.
We don't even talk about the Iraqi casualties... but it's personal for an Iraqi (and this one).
I think what bothers me isn't so much that in 2004 a major earthquake and tsunami can kill 160,000+ people... that's plate tectonics but the victims and their survivors need our prayers certainly... but it would be such a shame if Mr. Dickey is correct that we have become numb to the loss of life in conflict waged on our behalf. We aren't like that, are we? Please?
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Thoughts on Identity and Mutability
I've knocked this post around for a couple of days now... I have an idea of what bugs me, but I'm not sure exactly how to post it.
I saw this post in the blog of a troop in Iraq now (Dec. 30) musing on the frustrations of identifying one's enemy in such an environment. What caught my attention was her note that we bring in "enemy" wounded although they don't. Putting aside for the moment that they don't have a medical support system such as we have... it came to me that we don't bring someone to a CSH because of who they are but because of who we are. It's what we do.
I don't think Osama bin Laden staged 9/11 so he could one day dine in the White House. I think he did it to make an impact... and I think he succeeded and that his success continues every hour of every day since then. We gave him that when we started to change who we were and what we were about.
Putting aside the Patriot Act... speaking of a misuse of words... and the entire fact of the Iraq War... none of which would have happened without 9/11... I read this piece where we are making plans to incarcerate "suspected" terrorists for the rest of their lives without due process... these include people we could not try because of insufficient evidence. In the meantime the U.S. House of Representatives is advancing a plan to weaken its ethics rules in order to protect the Majority Leader, the Honorable Tom DeLay.
Yesterday I saw a newsbrief on CNN Headline News that I can't find the cite for... a judge in West Virginia blocked the divorce of a battered woman from her abusive husband because... according to the report... the child she is carrying would then be illegitimate.
None of this stuff is going to be happening... none of it... except that 9/11 knocked us off course and we haven't yet regained our balance. Personally, I believe that suits the ambitions of the Bush Administration, but that could be mean-spirited.
I advised the blogger in Iraq to try to find a moral rock... an immutable truth... and to hold onto that. I think we all need to do that... because it's really getting hard to put my finger on who we are anymore.
(P.S. on 1/3: This is a reference for the story on the woman denied a divorce because she's pregnant. It turns out that it's in Washington and not West Virginia... and the abusive husband who was jailed for beating her in 2002 and from whom the woman is separated is not the father. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this case is an exception to my assertion that "none of this" would have happened but for 9/11.)
I saw this post in the blog of a troop in Iraq now (Dec. 30) musing on the frustrations of identifying one's enemy in such an environment. What caught my attention was her note that we bring in "enemy" wounded although they don't. Putting aside for the moment that they don't have a medical support system such as we have... it came to me that we don't bring someone to a CSH because of who they are but because of who we are. It's what we do.
I don't think Osama bin Laden staged 9/11 so he could one day dine in the White House. I think he did it to make an impact... and I think he succeeded and that his success continues every hour of every day since then. We gave him that when we started to change who we were and what we were about.
Putting aside the Patriot Act... speaking of a misuse of words... and the entire fact of the Iraq War... none of which would have happened without 9/11... I read this piece where we are making plans to incarcerate "suspected" terrorists for the rest of their lives without due process... these include people we could not try because of insufficient evidence. In the meantime the U.S. House of Representatives is advancing a plan to weaken its ethics rules in order to protect the Majority Leader, the Honorable Tom DeLay.
Yesterday I saw a newsbrief on CNN Headline News that I can't find the cite for... a judge in West Virginia blocked the divorce of a battered woman from her abusive husband because... according to the report... the child she is carrying would then be illegitimate.
None of this stuff is going to be happening... none of it... except that 9/11 knocked us off course and we haven't yet regained our balance. Personally, I believe that suits the ambitions of the Bush Administration, but that could be mean-spirited.
I advised the blogger in Iraq to try to find a moral rock... an immutable truth... and to hold onto that. I think we all need to do that... because it's really getting hard to put my finger on who we are anymore.
(P.S. on 1/3: This is a reference for the story on the woman denied a divorce because she's pregnant. It turns out that it's in Washington and not West Virginia... and the abusive husband who was jailed for beating her in 2002 and from whom the woman is separated is not the father. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this case is an exception to my assertion that "none of this" would have happened but for 9/11.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)