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These are
Daily Updates for May 11 through 20, 2004, in reverse chronological order:
May
20, 2004: No update for Thursday, May 20, 2004 (Editor off--
family/medical responsibilities)
May
19, 2004: No update for Wednesday, May 19, 2004 (Editor off--
family/medical responsibilities)
May 18,
2004 #01: Political Satire/Commentary where satire
is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire™
(but we're confident you'll know the difference) Search
PoliSat.Com Home Tell
a friend about PoliSat.Com Subscribe
Permanent
Link to this installment in PoliSat.Com's Archives Google-News
list of recent updates About
author, Jim Wrenn.
Prisoners:
Humiliation, Mistreatment, Abuse, Torture; Geneva Conventions; Morality, Iraqi
Prisoners, American prisoners, Hostages, Arabs, Muslims, Terrorism,
Interrogation, Beheading, Nick Berg, Daniel Pearle, Abu-Ghraib; Lebanon,
Somalia, Iran, PLO, Hammas, Islamic Jihad, al Qaeda, Ansar al Islam, Baathists,
Ends Justifying Means; Means Justifying Ends.·
Is humane treatment of prisoners always a moral
imperative? Can there exist morally compelling justification
for inhumane treatment? Does not a moral society have an
obligation to draw and enforce such moral distinctions? Alan M. Dershowitz,
a self-described liberal, an ACLU member and Harvard Law Professor, presents
analyses of such issues in his book, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the
Challenge.
If one having custody of a prisoner were to have reasonable grounds to
believe: (a) the prisoner possesses information which, if revealed, could
enable authorities to prevent detonation of a nuclear bomb in a city and (b)
such prisoner is such a fanatical supporter of, and/or participant in, plans to
detonate such bomb that one could not reasonably expect to elicit such
information without inhumane interrogation, could such
custodian/interrogator morally refrain from such inhumane
interrogation? Would not such compelling moral end justify what would
otherwise be immoral means?
One's willingness to find moral justification for inhumane treatment of a
prisoner varies inversely in proportion to the extent to which one perceives
one's self, one's family, one's comrades or one's country to be at risk of
mortal danger preventable by information possessed by a prisoner one
perceives to be a fanatical supporter of those posing such dangers.
Knowledge that the natural human tendency of a custodian/interrogator suspecting
the possibility of such information being possessed by a prisoner
obliges moral societies to impose restraints to minimize the risks of facile
rationalizations for inhumane treatment absent moral justification.
For example, if interrogators of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
were to have acquired information to foil a plot for detonation of a
"dirty" bomb (to spread radioactive material in one of our cities) by
repeatedly holding his head under water until fear of drowning persuaded him to
divulge such information, the compellingly moral goal of such interrogation
ought to be deemed morally sufficient to justify what otherwise would be deemed
immorally inhumane treatment. In contrast, if such treatment were to be
routinely applied to prisoners in the absence of reasonable grounds for
believing it to be morally justified to do so, then the same means would be
immorally inhumane.
What about treatment that is humiliating but not inhumane? The Geneva
Convention proscribes public humiliation of prisoners but certainly does
not proscribe hurting their feelings and does not per se
proscribe private humiliation. If privately forcing a male prisoner
to wear women's apparel were to "humiliate" him into divulging
information that could save innocent lives, how could that be deemed
"immoral"? What about sleep deprivation? If one were to
reasonably believe a prisoner possessed information such that its divulgence
could save innocent lives, should not such prisoner's unwillingness to volunteer
such information be deemed morally sufficient to deprive him of a good night's
sleep if fatigue could be deemed reasonably likely to induce him to reveal such
information?
What about the argument that any deviation by the United States from the
most restrictive interpretation of limitations under the Geneva Convention would
increase the risks that our adversaries would abuse and/or torture American
military personnel or citizens captured by them? Islamic and/or Arab
fanatics' torture of American prisoners in Lebanon in the 1970's and 1980's, in
the Persian Gulf War, in Somalia, and at the beginning of Operation Iraqi
Freedom, and the savagely barbaric beheading of Daniel Pearle destroy
such argument.
This brings one to an issue at hand. Relatives of prisoners mistreated at
Abu-Ghraib, Arab/Islamic "leaders," and Western opponents of Operation
Iraqi Freedom have speciously and morally irresponsibly attempted to portray the
barbarically savage sawing-off of Nick Berg's head as being a "cycle of
violence response" to inhumane treatment of some of the prisoners at
Abu-Ghraib. Such argument could be deemed logical (yet morally
reprehensible) only if one were to view Arabs and Muslims as being
too intellectually immature to draw moral distinctions readily discernible to
young children. Yet, the fact
that some relatives of some of those prisoners are demanding the "death
penalty" for American military personnel who subjected them to non-lethal
"humiliation" provides startling evidence of why so few in
the Arab/Muslim communities have seen fit to unequivocally and forcefully
condemn the savage murder of Nick Berg: Too many Islamic and Arab cultures
consider beheading a suitable penalty for a variety of non-violent offenses such
as adultery, "blasphemy," "teaching" Christianity, etc.
Does this mean war against such barbaric fanaticism is hopeless? The
post-World-War-II evolution of modern, democratic, human-rights-respecting
Japan provides an unequivocal "no" as the answer to this
question. The degree of violence we had to inflict on Japan to enable this
evolution to occur demonstrates why critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom ought
to be praising our restraint while condemning our excesses as exceptions to the
rule rather than propagandistically characterizing such excesses as though they
were the rule rather than exceptions.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor@PoliSat.Com.
May 17, 2004: No Update -- Editor off due to
family/medical responsibilities.
May 16,
2004 #01: Political Satire/Commentary where satire
is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire™
(but we're confident you'll know the difference) Search
PoliSat.Com Home Tell
a friend about PoliSat.Com Subscribe
Permanent
Link to this installment in PoliSat.Com's Archives Google-News
list of recent updates About
author, Jim Wrenn.
It's
time to admit that President Bush should have delayed war against Saddam
Hussein until after obtaining approval by, and participation of, the
United Nations, NATO, France, Canada, and "moderate" Arab countries in
addition to Britain and Australia.·
It's time for those of us who supported President Bush's war against Saddam
Hussein to admit that Bush should have delayed war against Saddam Hussein
until after obtaining approval by, and participation of, the United
Nations, NATO, France, Canada and "moderate" Arab countries in
addition to Britain and Australia. It's time that we also admit that
before commencement of such warfare, there was every reason to believe that
assembling such "international" coalition of moral and legal authority
would have been prevented such war from serving as an incentive for terrorist
organizations covertly aided by lawless and/or outlaw states to recruit fanatics
to attack the United States and its allies.
It's time that we also admit that assembling
such broad, international coalition would discourage lawless and outlaw states
from continuing to covertly facilitate terrorism against the United States and
its allies. It's time to admit that commencing warfare only after
assembling such coalition would have maximized our ability to minimize
casualties among United States military personnel.
It's time to admit that commencing warfare
only after assembling such broad, international coalition would have minimized
the ability of terrorists to characterize such action as a war by the United
States against an Arab country and/or a Muslim country. It's time to admit
that commencing such warfare only after procuring such broad, international
support constituted the best way to minimize the risks of the conflict worsening
the prospects for the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
It's time to admit that President Bush ought to have expected that to commence
such warfare without such broad international support would increase incentives
for terrorists to attack the United States. Indeed, it's time to admit
that everyone expected that procurement of support for such war from the
U.N., NATO, France, et al, would reduce, not increase, the abilities of
our adversaries to recruit fanatics to attack us.
Likewise, it's time for those who most vociferously opposed commencement of
President Bush's war against Saddam Hussein to admit that before
President Bush ordered commencement of war, he did obtain United Nations
approval, he did procure NATO participation, and he did procure
support of, and participation by, Arab countries, When such critics
dispute these assertions, it's time to remind them that the President was George
Herbert Walker Bush and the war was the Persian Gulf War to evict Saddam
Hussein's forces from Kuwait. When such critics fail to grasp the
relevance of these facts, it time to remind them that the major reason described
by Usama bin Laden and his al Qaeda fanatics as their "justification"
for the 9-11 attack was that the United States had "desecrated"
Arab/Muslim land by deploying military forces into Saudi Arabia in the Persian
Gulf War and by thereafter maintaining a smaller deployment in Saudi Arabia to
"contain" Saddam Hussein.
Likewise, with respect to those who contend the United States' failure (thus
far) to find evidence of the presence of massive stockpiles of chemical or
biological weapons and/or re-constituted nuclear weapons programs in Iraq during
the time period preceding commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom invalidates
Bush's assertions of moral justification for the war, it's time for them to
admit that for Bush to have abstained from war in favor of complying with
demands of the United Nationistas (i.e., the French, the
Russians, the Germans, and the Chinese) to merely "continue
inspections" and "contain" Saddam Hussein would have required the United States to
indefinitely continue maintaining a military force in the Persian Gulf and Saudi
Arabia many times larger than the small, pre-positioned force in Saudi Arabia
before 9-11, the presence of which bin Laden cited as his chief justification
for the 9-11 attack. The refusal of Bush's critics to acknowledge the
validity of such common-sense conclusions proves not that they lack common sense
but rather than they lack the political will to forego the partisan advantage of
pretending they're inapplicable.
George W. Bush and those of us who support Operation Iraqi Freedom should demand
that critics of the war explain to the American voters how refraining
from toppling Saddam Hussein unless and until the United Nationistas'
were to have approved, and participated in, such action could have made us
"safer" or somehow reduced terrorists' motivations to strike
us again for maintaining a larger force in the Persian Gulf post-9-11
(to enforce "sanctions" and "inspections") than the
token-size of the pre-9-11 force, the existence of which motivated their 9-11
attack. Making such demands would remind voters currently distracted by
unexpected difficulties in completing the tasks at hand that there is no
common-sense basis for critics to make such claim. Rather than falling
prey to such baseless claims by critics, voters would be more likely to remember
the Prime Directive of International Law: "Fool us once, shame on
you; fool us twice, shame on us."
Conceding
Mistakes about War.
Say
critics of Bush, "Waging war
has made us less safe than before.
To merely contain
Saddam," they proclaim,
"is all that was needed, not more."
They
claim that we shouldn't commence
a war without U.N. consent
because such support
they'd hope would help thwart
revenge for the warfare commenced.
For
we who approved war by Bush,
it's time for conceding that Bush
should first have procured
the U.N.'s de jure
support for the warfare by Bush.
It's
time to concede that before
the pushing of buttons for war,
such U.N. support
we'd hope would help thwart
revenge against us for the war.
But
likewise, it's time Bush's critics
admit facts they'd not like admitted:
That Bush did procure
the U.N.'s de jure
support to start war when he did it.
They'll
claim this by Bush wasn't done,
forgetting 'twas Bush 41,
whose U.N. support
for war didn't thwart
revenge in September, '01.
They'll
try to pretend they've forgotten
the motive explained by bin Laden
was basing our force
with U.N. support
in Mid-Eastern lands against Saddam.
So
therefore, it's time Dubya's critics
against their own theories be pitted
to quash their retort
that U.N. support
would help thwart revenge on our cities.
It's
time they be forced to concede
if Bush had said, "War we don't need,"
a much larger force
than forces deployed
before 9-11 we'd need.
It's
time that they further concede
maintaining the forces we'd need
in Mid-Eastern lands
to tie Saddam's hands
would make our risks grow, not recede.
It's
time for such critics to end
their naive desire to pretend
such much-larger force
would not have perforce
increased Qaeda's lust for revenge.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor@PoliSat.Com.
May 13, 2004: No
Update for Thursday, May 13, 2004 (Editor off-- family/medical responsibilities)
May 12, 2004: No
update for Wednesday, May 12, 2004 (Editor off-- family/medical
responsibilities)
May
11, 2004: No update for Tuesday, May 11, 2004 (Editor off-- family/medical
responsibilities)
Daily
Update immediately preceding the one above.
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