On the seventh day of the seventh month in the fourth year of the War on Terror, death came to another western capital, in the form of bombs in London’s transportation system. The leaders of the Group of Eight nations, meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland are repeating their boilerplate speeches about resolve, but what can they actually do?
Since 2001, western nations, primarily the United States, have invaded one country related to al Quaeda (Afghanistan) and one nation unrelated to al Quaeda (Iraq). Anti-western Islamic militants appear to be regaining strength in Afghanistan and intelligence experts agree Iraq is now the incubator of international terrorism that it was not prior to the 2003 invasion.
The War on Terror, unlike previous wars, is not about seizing territory. It’s not, as some would have us believe, about Christendom versus Islam. The War on Terror is a war of principles. The United States, along with al Quaeda, is losing this war.
In his 1982 book, Schindler’s List, Thomas Keneally writes of a group of Polish Jews who are forced into a synagogue by Nazi soldiers and told to spit on the Torah. They comply, with the exception of Max Redlicht, a gangster and non-observant Jew. “I’ve done a lot,” Mr. Redlicht says. “But I won’t do that.” The head Nazi praises Mr. Redlicht for the strength of his conviction and shoots him in the head. The Nazis then turn to the Jews who spat on the Torah and kill them, too.
In this week’s issue of The New Yorker, Jane Mayer writes about the U.S. military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program, which trains pilots and special forces troops to withstand the extreme abuse they might suffer if they fall into enemy hands. As part of SERE training, soldiers are held in mock prison camps, stripped, deprived of sleep, denied food, sexually humiliated, exposed to extreme temperatures and interrogated by instructors posing as enemy inquisitors. By exposing our soldiers and airmen to these tactics in safe, controlled conditions, it is hoped they will hold up better if they ever have to face the real thing.
Ms. Mayer reports that toward the end of a SERE exercise, when the participants are worn down, they are subjected to a “religious dilemma” in which a Bible is desecrated by role-playing “captors.” “Some trainees who are devout Christians are profoundly disturbed during the exercise,” she writes.
Ms. Mayer notes the similarity between the repertoire of SERE exercises – nudity, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, desecration of holy books – and the list of known and alleged abuses at detention facilities operated by the U.S. military from Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan to Abu Ghraib, Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Responses from the Pentagon range from outright denial to blaming (when the evidence is incontrovertible) isolated rogue enlisted people to eventually claiming – without admitting actual wrongdoing – that our interrogation tactics have saved lives. In this ideological war between “terrorists” and the “forces of freedom,” the Nazi ideology of desecration and dehumanization is winning.
It may be impolitic to ask in light of this morning’s explosions, but at what point are lives no longer worth saving? How far down the scale of immorality must we fall before we see that our rage at their terrorism feeds our justification to invade, detain and torture and the reciprocal rage of the Islamic world recruits more insurgents and bombers? When will we be no longer able to distinguish between “innocent bystanders” who die on our side and the “collateral damage” we inflict on theirs?
I would argue that bad behavior on our side has cost, not saved, western lives, but even if I’m wrong, how many of our principles are we, as a people, willing to sacrifice to save our lives?
Patriotism is not about winning. It’s not about anti-flag-burning amendments or chanting, “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” at international athletic events. Patriotism, for an American, is the defense of the ideals expressed in our 229-year-old revolution and the Bill of Rights, particularly respect for the rights of the individual.
Military occupations, extraordinary renditions and networks of ghost torture camps did not save the lives of those Londoners today; they may well have contributed to their deaths. If some or all of us are to die defending our nation, then we should die with our principles intact.
A Death Worth Dying
On the seventh day of the seventh month in the fourth year of the War on Terror, death came to another western capital, in the form of bombs in London’s transportation system. The leaders of the Group of Eight nations, meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland are repeating their boilerplate speeches about resolve, but what can they actually do?
Since 2001, western nations, primarily the United States, have invaded one country related to al Quaeda (Afghanistan) and one nation unrelated to al Quaeda (Iraq). Anti-western Islamic militants appear to be regaining strength in Afghanistan and intelligence experts agree Iraq is now the incubator of international terrorism that it was not prior to the 2003 invasion.
The War on Terror, unlike previous wars, is not about seizing territory. It’s not, as some would have us believe, about Christendom versus Islam. The War on Terror is a war of principles. The United States, along with al Quaeda, is losing this war.
In his 1982 book, Schindler’s List, Thomas Keneally writes of a group of Polish Jews who are forced into a synagogue by Nazi soldiers and told to spit on the Torah. They comply, with the exception of Max Redlicht, a gangster and non-observant Jew. “I’ve done a lot,” Mr. Redlicht says. “But I won’t do that.” The head Nazi praises Mr. Redlicht for the strength of his conviction and shoots him in the head. The Nazis then turn to the Jews who spat on the Torah and kill them, too.
In this week’s issue of The New Yorker, Jane Mayer writes about the U.S. military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program, which trains pilots and special forces troops to withstand the extreme abuse they might suffer if they fall into enemy hands. As part of SERE training, soldiers are held in mock prison camps, stripped, deprived of sleep, denied food, sexually humiliated, exposed to extreme temperatures and interrogated by instructors posing as enemy inquisitors. By exposing our soldiers and airmen to these tactics in safe, controlled conditions, it is hoped they will hold up better if they ever have to face the real thing.
Ms. Mayer reports that toward the end of a SERE exercise, when the participants are worn down, they are subjected to a “religious dilemma” in which a Bible is desecrated by role-playing “captors.” “Some trainees who are devout Christians are profoundly disturbed during the exercise,” she writes.
Ms. Mayer notes the similarity between the repertoire of SERE exercises – nudity, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, desecration of holy books – and the list of known and alleged abuses at detention facilities operated by the U.S. military from Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan to Abu Ghraib, Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Responses from the Pentagon range from outright denial to blaming (when the evidence is incontrovertible) isolated rogue enlisted people to eventually claiming – without admitting actual wrongdoing – that our interrogation tactics have saved lives. In this ideological war between “terrorists” and the “forces of freedom,” the Nazi ideology of desecration and dehumanization is winning.
It may be impolitic to ask in light of this morning’s explosions, but at what point are lives no longer worth saving? How far down the scale of immorality must we fall before we see that our rage at their terrorism feeds our justification to invade, detain and torture and the reciprocal rage of the Islamic world recruits more insurgents and bombers? When will we be no longer able to distinguish between “innocent bystanders” who die on our side and the “collateral damage” we inflict on theirs?
I would argue that bad behavior on our side has cost, not saved, western lives, but even if I’m wrong, how many of our principles are we, as a people, willing to sacrifice to save our lives?
Patriotism is not about winning. It’s not about anti-flag-burning amendments or chanting, “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” at international athletic events. Patriotism, for an American, is the defense of the ideals expressed in our 229-year-old revolution and the Bill of Rights, particularly respect for the rights of the individual.
Military occupations, extraordinary renditions and networks of ghost torture camps did not save the lives of those Londoners today; they may well have contributed to their deaths. If some or all of us are to die defending our nation, then we should die with our principles intact.
© Mark Floegel, 2005