Day 200
Day 200. Only two missed days. Not too shabby if I do say so myself.
I thought I'd take a moment to talk a little bit about my views on war, POWs and torture. The issue of how and when wars ought to be fought by the so-named free western democracies has been a big one in politics, media, and around many dinner tables since 9/11. Foremost is the issue of pre-emptive war (Iraq being the most clear example of such a policy) and and in the background of this is the issue of national security and its corollary: treatment and interrogation of war prisoners, or the conveniently termed "enemy combatants."
I don't know if a pre-emptive war is justified in any circumstance. Seems to me that it could be; imagine that everything Bush said in the runpup to tbe Iraq war really was true. Imagine that once Iraw was invaded it really did turn out that Saddam Hussein had all kinds of horrible biological/radioactive weapons, and active plans to deploy them upon neighbouring nations and even in western nations. Would the invasion and overthrowing of his regime then have been justified?
I'm inclined to say yes, but with a grain of salt. There is a danger in either justifying /or/ deriding a decision retroactively based on outcomes that were difficult or impossible to predict. Our assessment of a decision should be made in part on consequences but also in part on what materials the decision maker had prior the the decision being made. To this degree I would sympathize with the Bush administration when it states that "...we were using the best intelligence we had at the time" because this is a legitimate defense of the decision, even if it turned out contrary to expectations (though I do not sympathize because this clearly isn't honest).
Enemy combatants... How is that a fair estimation? "But they were caught in the midst of combat, guns blazing..." you say. Sure. But analogues are true here at home: people are often caught on tape, or even in the act, commiting horrible crimes, and yet the presumption of innocence holds to the very moment of the verdict. The defendant is "the accused" not "the axe-wielding murderer" even if he was caught on tape and seen by witnesses. It is pretty clear that we do not offer the protections of our revered justice system to those against whom we capture in war.
But then, why should we? This is war, or so the argument goes, not a police operation.
John Ashcroft was in front of congress today insisting that while the United States does not practice any form of torture, it does practice waterboarding (google that if you don't know how it works). It's not torture, he says, it is (and I quote) "enhanced interrogation."
That sounds evil; it sounds evil in a quiet, subtle, modest sort of way, like a soulless person with a warm smile and calm disposition. Almost... inviting.
The most obvious definition of torture (at least in my mind) is also the least conducive to proponents of it. Anything that compels a radical, brainwashed person to reveal covert information to his sworn enemies must be torture! Only something truly torturous would motivate such actions.
And thus follows what I believe to be a bittersweet conclusion: democracies cannot be good at fighting wars. The whole point of democracy is not "playing dirty" when it comes to leadership and, yes, war as well. Government is supposed to rotate at the will of the people, and it is supposed to be liberal, and follow international human rights prescriptions. It is also supposed to be publicly open and honest to the people it represents.
To fight a war well means to do the opposite of these things. A wartime leadership needs to be rock solid, and not subject to the transient will of its people. A wartime leadership needs to demonize the enemy, to inundate its populous with propaganda and anti-enemy rhetoric. The "Terrorist" is the new buzz word, in historical parallel with the Communist and Charlie and the Japs. The nuances of innocence and guilt and context and motive get thrown out. The enemy simply is, and the good fighting troops simply are. The enemy has to be understood as less than human, for this is the only way for a nation of conscience to justify legislating the systematized killing of the enemy.
I guess what I'm talking about isn't so much war as the language of war, or the consciousness we are told to have when it comes to war.
I think I would be a very bad soldier.
I thought I'd take a moment to talk a little bit about my views on war, POWs and torture. The issue of how and when wars ought to be fought by the so-named free western democracies has been a big one in politics, media, and around many dinner tables since 9/11. Foremost is the issue of pre-emptive war (Iraq being the most clear example of such a policy) and and in the background of this is the issue of national security and its corollary: treatment and interrogation of war prisoners, or the conveniently termed "enemy combatants."
I don't know if a pre-emptive war is justified in any circumstance. Seems to me that it could be; imagine that everything Bush said in the runpup to tbe Iraq war really was true. Imagine that once Iraw was invaded it really did turn out that Saddam Hussein had all kinds of horrible biological/radioactive weapons, and active plans to deploy them upon neighbouring nations and even in western nations. Would the invasion and overthrowing of his regime then have been justified?
I'm inclined to say yes, but with a grain of salt. There is a danger in either justifying /or/ deriding a decision retroactively based on outcomes that were difficult or impossible to predict. Our assessment of a decision should be made in part on consequences but also in part on what materials the decision maker had prior the the decision being made. To this degree I would sympathize with the Bush administration when it states that "...we were using the best intelligence we had at the time" because this is a legitimate defense of the decision, even if it turned out contrary to expectations (though I do not sympathize because this clearly isn't honest).
Enemy combatants... How is that a fair estimation? "But they were caught in the midst of combat, guns blazing..." you say. Sure. But analogues are true here at home: people are often caught on tape, or even in the act, commiting horrible crimes, and yet the presumption of innocence holds to the very moment of the verdict. The defendant is "the accused" not "the axe-wielding murderer" even if he was caught on tape and seen by witnesses. It is pretty clear that we do not offer the protections of our revered justice system to those against whom we capture in war.
But then, why should we? This is war, or so the argument goes, not a police operation.
John Ashcroft was in front of congress today insisting that while the United States does not practice any form of torture, it does practice waterboarding (google that if you don't know how it works). It's not torture, he says, it is (and I quote) "enhanced interrogation."
That sounds evil; it sounds evil in a quiet, subtle, modest sort of way, like a soulless person with a warm smile and calm disposition. Almost... inviting.
The most obvious definition of torture (at least in my mind) is also the least conducive to proponents of it. Anything that compels a radical, brainwashed person to reveal covert information to his sworn enemies must be torture! Only something truly torturous would motivate such actions.
And thus follows what I believe to be a bittersweet conclusion: democracies cannot be good at fighting wars. The whole point of democracy is not "playing dirty" when it comes to leadership and, yes, war as well. Government is supposed to rotate at the will of the people, and it is supposed to be liberal, and follow international human rights prescriptions. It is also supposed to be publicly open and honest to the people it represents.
To fight a war well means to do the opposite of these things. A wartime leadership needs to be rock solid, and not subject to the transient will of its people. A wartime leadership needs to demonize the enemy, to inundate its populous with propaganda and anti-enemy rhetoric. The "Terrorist" is the new buzz word, in historical parallel with the Communist and Charlie and the Japs. The nuances of innocence and guilt and context and motive get thrown out. The enemy simply is, and the good fighting troops simply are. The enemy has to be understood as less than human, for this is the only way for a nation of conscience to justify legislating the systematized killing of the enemy.
I guess what I'm talking about isn't so much war as the language of war, or the consciousness we are told to have when it comes to war.
I think I would be a very bad soldier.
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