{"id":6673,"date":"2014-12-11T13:40:16","date_gmt":"2014-12-11T20:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=6673"},"modified":"2014-12-11T13:40:16","modified_gmt":"2014-12-11T20:40:16","slug":"jim-wright-on-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2014\/12\/11\/jim-wright-on-torture\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Wright on Torture"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re not reading Jim Wright’s Stonekettle Station blog<\/a>, you ought to be. Jim is a retired naval officer who lives in Alaska and has an uncommonly clear-eyed perspective on a great many things… as well as a brutally frank way of expressing it. His essay<\/a> on the torture report is typical of his writing, a very lengthy but insightful piece in which he pulls no punches and says things a lot of people don’t want to say. You should definitely read and consider the whole thing, but here are a couple of excerpts:<\/p>\n

On our reasons for doing it:<\/p>\n

Of course, we knew that our government tortured people. We knew that. That\u2019s no secret. They told us. And we Americans? We let them do it and a lot of us cheered them on \u2013 certainly not all of us, maybe not even a majority, but enough.<\/p>\n

And why not torture? No really, why the hell not?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After what our enemies did to us, after the crime they<\/em> committed, after the carnage they<\/em> wrought, were we not justified in any<\/em> measure?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We wanted blood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We wanted revenge and we had a right to that payback did we not?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More than anything, we wanted them<\/em> to be afraid<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just like they had made us afraid.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They aren\u2019t human, these enemies. That\u2019s what we tell ourselves, isn\u2019t it? They\u2019re not human, they\u2019re not men<\/em>. That\u2019s how we justified it. They\u2019re pigs. Dogs. Towel heads. Camel jockeys. Ragheads. Hajis. Sand niggers. Vermin. They are terrorists and nothing more. So what does it matter if we torture them?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They deserve no<\/em> mercy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They are entitled to no<\/em> rights.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But even then \u2013 even then \u2013 we couldn\u2019t quite bring ourselves to admit what we were doing, could we?\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t quite admit what we Americans allowed to be done in our names. So we called it \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d and \u201ccoercive methods\u201d and \u201crendition\u201d instead of \u201ctorture.\u201d And we said those words in the same fashion that we Americans used to say \u201cseparate but equal\u201d to describe our apartheid.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And on whether the infamous “ticking bomb” scenario is any justification:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if the terrorists had your family? What if they had an atom bomb hidden in a city with your family strapped to it and you caught one of those bastards and there was only an hour left and there was no time to evacuate and millions were going die? Including your family! Huh? What about that<\/em>? Are you saying you wouldn\u2019t<\/em> do whatever was necessary<\/em> to get that information? I bet you would!\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You\u2019re right, I would.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I, me personally? I would do whatever<\/em> it took, including torture, if that was the only way to save the city, if that was the only way to save my family, if that was the only way to save you<\/em>. As a military officer, yes, I would. Absolutely. I wouldn\u2019t order my men to do it, I\u2019d do it myself. I shove a hose up the bastard\u2019s nose and turn on the water. I\u2019d shoot out his knees. I\u2019d cut off his balls. You bet. If that\u2019s what it took. I\u2019d do it without hesitation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And I\u2019d do it knowing I was breaking the law, and I would expect to be tried for the crime and sent to prison.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I would.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Because even if I saved the day, I\u2019d be wrong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Good intentions do not justify evil.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read that again: “Good intentions do not justify evil.”<\/p>\n

Finally, this:<\/p>\n

Now certainly it may be extremely<\/i> difficult to treat a terrorist who tried to destroy your nation and your loved ones humanely.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Certainly. No sane person disputes that. I\u2019ve taken prisoners in defense of my country, trust me on this, it\u2019s goddamned hard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However that, that right there, is the very definition of moral courage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You cannot lay claim to the moral high ground if you engage in the same brutality as your enemies.<\/p>\n

If the United States of America insists on calling itself exceptional, then it must be the exception.\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Emphasis is Wright’s, but I wholeheartedly agree.)<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, he’s got much, much more to say on the subject, and it’s all worth your time. Go. Read it<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re not reading Jim Wright’s Stonekettle Station blog, you ought to be. Jim is a retired naval officer who lives in Alaska and has an uncommonly clear-eyed perspective on a great many things… as well as a brutally frank way of expressing it. His essay on the torture report is typical of his writing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}