Jesse Taylor over at Pandagon has a killer post about BITLA and the
far-right's growing acceptance of sodomy and other SadoMasochist practices as a
necessary way to defend the Iraq war and George Bush.
Torture. It kinda sucks. It's unproductive. It's morally questionable,
at best. As a matter of practice, it's simply not the sort of thing we
should be doing, particularly given that we're fighting a war of images
and perception among the entire world alongside military and law
enforcement operations.
The first major genus in this ideological family is brought to us in a stellar fashion by Andrew McCarthy of the National Review.
Did you know that al-Qaeda isn't a party to the Geneva Convention? That
it really, really isn't one? That, in fact, a result of its not being a
party to the Geneva Convention is that it is, in fact, not a party to
the Geneva Convention in fact?
After such a blistering takedown of Not The Point, McCarthy then
lets us know what the real point is: we have to sign a treaty with
al-Qaeda to avoid the otherwise undeniable pull of shoving things up
the asses of Middle-Eastern men to no useful affect whatsoever.
There is no legal agreement with al-Qaeda that we don't rape anyone we
arrest as a member of their group. Likewise, there is no agreement that
we won't take every single member of their group and force-feed them
ham until they die. However, we don't do either of those things because
we recognize they would be fucking wrong to do to other human beings.
McCarthy's argument is that we need a formalized set of rules to
acknowledge basic respect for human life. It doesn't even matter that
torture rarely yields useful information. It doesn't matter that it's
net counterproductive, ensuring that terrorists can campaign against
the Western barbarians and recruit lots of young bodies upon which
bombs can be strapped.
The prohibitions against torture in the Geneva Conventions are a good
idea for civilized people - it does not matter whether or not the
potential torturee has a uniform or has signed on the dotted line. It is a good practice regardless. A basic precept of most moral codes is that you don't stop doing the
right thing because there's no one there to hold you responsible. In
the Christian faith, the truest test of your faith is not when the eyes
of the world are on you, but when you are by yourself and only the eyes
of God can see your actions. "Nobody made us sign anything" is not a
reason for gross moral stupidity, no matter how pat of an answer it
seems.
I think, while morally pretty much besides the point, that
rhetorically we should keep pointing out that many of the people we're
doing this to are not hardened terrorists bent on destroying America.
Many are (a) people in Afghanistan whom the Northern Alliance/warlords
sold to us for $5000 or (b) randoms in Iraq who lived next door to some
guy who we thought did something to us.
So, we don't have to say, "terrorists deserve to be not have
phosphor lamps shoved up their asses" but "we're doing this not to just
the Sheik Mohammeds of the world, but also innocents." They might become
part of Al Qaeda after we're done sodomizing them, though. Which
probably explaines why the number of insurgents fighting us in Iraq
keeps growing regardless of how many we kill.
I wonder if it's too late to start pressing for more Bad Ideas That Liberals Abhor to enter the memesphere.
You know, "LIE-brals say drinking lead, playing Russian Roulette or
answering spam from Nigeria are bad ideas. Are we going to listen to
them?"
Hmmm - I wonder if we can convince Freepers that only effeminate quiche-eating lefties don't play Russian Roulette?
Just thinking...
