Ok, now I try not to take myself too seriously, but it really looks like Prager is answering my attacks on the Bush administrations torture policies.
More below the fold:
Here is what Prager had to say:
WND
The first is that the Left frequently defines "social justice" differently than Judeo-Christian values do. For most on the Left, "social justice" means social equality and social fairness. It is not fair that some people have more than others. This is why the Left believes that courts should be far more than umpires when adjudicating justice: They should be promoting fairness and equality.
The other difference, the focus of this column, is that leftist ideologies are so preoccupied with "social justice" that they generally ignore personal character development.
Judeo-Christian values believe the road to a just society is paved by individual character development; the Left believes it is paved with action on a macro level.
Ok, Prager just makes a bunch of general statements here, but below is the important stuff.
That is one reason the Left is far more interested than the Right, i.e., religious Jews and Christians and secular conservatives, in passing laws, whether through legislation or through the actions of judges. That is how the Left believes you make a better society. There is, incidentally, a second reason the Left passes so many laws: As the Left breaks down the self-discipline of Judeo-Christian religions, more and more laws are needed simply to keep people from devouring each other.
That the Left is more concerned with social change than individual change and the Right is more concerned with individual than social activism can be seen in many areas.
Many parents, for example, measure their child's character by the child's social activism, not by his or her behavior toward fellow students. If the child has walked for AIDS, or marched for breast cancer, or works on "environmental issues," the child is deemed - and the child deems himself - a fine person. That he or she might mistreat less popular kids in class is not considered.
There are, of course, religious Jews and Christians who do not lead decent lives and there are leftists who do. But leftist ideals, being overwhelmingly macro, will always be more appealing to the less decent who want to feel good about themselves. That helps explain those Hollywood celebrities who lead narcissistic, hedonistic personal lives, but nevertheless feel very good about themselves by raising money for "peace" or by demonstrating against global warming.
Ok, Prager claims that we who are interested in helping others are really trying to cover up for our own indecency and hedonistic practices.
Alright now we all know that there are both moral and immoral people in both parties and quite frankly we all have our shortcomings, but to tie political activism with lifestyle practices seems to be a real stretch. In any case, Prager goes on with the generalizations to make a larger point.
I first became aware of this vast discrepancy between "social activism" and personal ethical behavior when I saw the personal behavior of the "pro-peace," anti-war, activists at my graduate school (Columbia University) in the early 1970s. They demonstrated for world peace, but led personally narcissistic lives. Their theoretical altruism was all macro. Meanwhile, most of the religious students were preoccupied with personal character issues.
Why? Because Judeo-Christian values have always understood that the world is made better by making people better. On occasion, of course, a great moral cause must be joined. For example, it was religious Christians who led the fight to abolish slavery in Europe and America. But in general, the way to a better society is through the laborious and completely non-glamorous project of making each person more honest, more courageous, more decent, more likely to commit to another person in marriage, more likely to devote more time to raising children, and so on.
That is why all those peace studies institutes and courses are morally meaningless. Only by people learning to fight their yetzer hara will peace reign on earth.
Now, I am posting this piece because I believe I know what he is implying and so I will address it.
The torture practices at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and elsewhere have nothing to do with "character development".
I will explain what I mean - lets say you have a son who is engaged in an activity that you wanted to punish, what would be the more "character building" punishment?
A. Spank the child or hit him with a belt?
B. Strip him naked, lock him in his room without a blanket and turn the air conditioning up full blast?
C. Strip him naked and invite a bunch of girls over to stare at and/or laugh at his genitals?
Better yet - which practices are the most humane, most civilized and which are the most brutal? Which practice(s) would damage the child permanently and which would cause temporary discomfort or pain?
I believe that B and C are the most uncivilized, the most inhumane and the most brutal and they would cause longer term and possibly permanent psychological damage.
That being said; punishment A causes the most physical pain while punishment B and C cause no real physical pain at all. Am I a violent person for pointing out that B and C are more damaging or am I insightful and rightly concerned about the effects of violence to the spirit and personhood that is bound to have a permanent effect on the child or any individual?
I will now point out that I am not for hitting a child with a belt, neither am I for arbitrarily punching, kicking or slapping detainees, but we must recognize that the current Gitmo practices are much more damaging.
I know we are talking about adults and not children here, (with a few exceptions) but this business about the Gitmo torture practices being used to "build character" is simply false and really insulting.
Make no mistake these practices are intended to cause severe mental pain and suffering and have nothing to do with "character building".
For those who do not know how Gitmo works it works like this - prisoners are asked to comply with illegal orders and if they decline (which is their right) they are violently attacked, sprayed in the face with mace, often kicked in the genitals, gauged in the eyes and struck in "pressure points" to cause excruciating pain.
Furthermore, prisoners are subjected to routine degrading treatment such as being stripped naked in front of female soldiers, sexually taunted, and left naked in their cells (for often long periods of time) and even sexually assaulted and sodomized.
In addition, prisoners who try to defend themselves from forced compliance with illegal orders are deemed "violent" and are subjected to further harsh treatment.
You can't teach someone to be decent when you yourself are engaged in indecency, you can't teach someone to be non-violent if you are engaged in violence. Furthermore, the only time violence is acceptable is when it is for self defense and it is wrong to take revenge on prisoners who simply try to defend themselves, their basic human dignity and their human rights.
Furthermore, we also have this issue regarding the rule of law. The Center for Constitutional Rights is reporting that the DOD is denying the prisoners access to lawyers, which is apparently more "character building".
CCR
More than a year ago the Supreme Court ruled in the Center for Constitutional Rights case Rasul v. Bush that the Guantanamo detainees have a right to file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts. Despite this fact, the government continues to block the detainees' access to their attorneys, and now, in cases where prisoners have managed to communicate their request for counsel through other detainees or lawyers, the government has said it will not honor those requests.
The Department of Defense has done everything in its power to prevent these detainees from having access to the courts. It has held the detainees incommunicado, has refused to disclose their identities, and is now challenging their requests for legal representation. Despite the government's efforts to prevent detainees from being able to communicate their desire for attorneys (such as refusing to provide pens to detainees to write letters to counsel or the courts, refusing to deliver the mail of those detainees who are able to write, and holding detainees in solitary confinement), some detainees have managed to communicate their request for legal assistance to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) the only way they could - through other detainees.
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"It's hard to understand the government's position on this," stated CCR attorney Tina Monshipour Foster. "On the one hand, the government takes the position that an attorney cannot file a petition for a detainee unless the detainee has communicated with his lawyer directly. On the other hand, they refuse to allow attorneys to communicate with their clients directly until after the petition is filed."
I think Amnesty International did the best to sum this all up in their latest report entitled: "cruel, inhumane, degrades us all."
Amnesty
Some claim that the world changed irrevocably after the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001, attacks condemned by Amnesty International and many others as a crime against humanity. They contend that the response to terrorist threats can therefore no longer be bound by the previously agreed rules. Others seek to distinguish between torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, claiming that torture
is wrong, but some forms of ill-treatment can be countenanced. This allows them to assert that they remain opposed to torture while justifying the use of techniques that constitute at the very least cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment - treatment that is also absolutely prohibited in international law.
The US government has been in the forefront of arguing that the previously accepted international legal framework no longer applies, and that people rounded up in the "war on terror" can be denied the protection of the Geneva Conventions. US forces, with the collusion of other states, have snatched people from other parts of the world, held them in secret, illegally transferred them between countries, and subjected them to torture and ill-treatment. Senior US officials have authorized the use of interrogation techniques that are cruel, inhuman or degrading and can amount to torture.
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As the most powerful country in the world, the USA's conduct influences governments everywhere, encouraging the spread of unacceptable practices and giving comfort to those who commit torture routinely. Amnesty International's campaign to stop torture and ill-treatment in the "war on terror" calls on the USA to take a lead in reasserting and upholding the values of human dignity that it proclaims. These values have been betrayed by the US government in its pursuit of the "war on terror", and other states have been quick to follow suit.
"All indicated that they had been horribly treated, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan... The stories they told were remarkably similar - terrible beatings, hung from wrists and beaten, removal of clothes, hooding, exposure naked to extreme cold, naked in front of female guards, sexual taunting by both male and female guards/interrogators, some sexual abuse (rectal intrusion), terrible uncomfortable positions for hours. All confirmed that all this treatment was by Americans... Several mentioned the use of electric shocks - like ping pong paddles put under arms - some had this done; many saw it done."
Notes of a US lawyer after meeting Kuwaiti detainees in Guantánamo Bay in January 2005
Some governments have used the rhetoric of the "war on terror" to justify or intensify old patterns of repression. These include China, Egypt, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Yemen. Other states have introduced or intensified the use of draconian laws and abusive practices. Among these are Australia, Jordan and the UK, as well as countries in the Gulf region. Some countries, including Germany, Turkey and the UK, have been reluctant to take up the cases of their nationals or residents detained and ill-treated by US agents. Still others, such as Egypt, Gambia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Pakistan and Sweden, have allowed foreign agents from countries including China, Egypt, Syria and the USA, to take people illegally from their territory.
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Attempts at the UN to address human rights concerns in the context of the "war on terror" have been opposed by some states. For example, the US and UK governments blocked efforts at the UN to specify the obligations of forces in Iraq under international humanitarian and human rights law. In June 2004 they prevented a proposal to set out these duties in a UN Security Council resolution. The Spanish government rejected as "unacceptable" a February 2004 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on torture into allegations of torture by people detained as part of counter-terrorism measures. The report concluded that the allegations were not fabrications and that the incidence of torture and ill-treatment, while not regular, was "more than sporadic and incidental".
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"Make no mistake: every regime tortures does so in the name of salvation, some superior goal, some promise of paradise. Call it communism, call it the free market, call it the free world, call it the national interest, call it fascism, call it the leader, call it civilisation, call it the service of God, call it the need for information; call it what you will, the cost of paradise, the promise of some sort of paradise... will always be hell for at least one person somewhere, sometime." Ariel Dorfman, Chilean writer, May 2004
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"We're making a drastic mistake here. What I saw as a whole was inconsistent with who we are and the values we represent as a nation."
US army sergeant Eric Saar, who was on duty in Guantánamo in late 2002
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Governments have a duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent acts of terror, and to bring to justice those responsible for committing or planning such acts. But they must not respond to terror with terror. The use of torture and ill-treatment can jeopardize the process of bringing to justice those who have committed acts of terror, since many countries prohibit information obtained as a result of torture being used as evidence. The people behind the bombings of buses in Israel, Iraq and Turkey, or the clubs in Bali, or the trains in Madrid and London, should be brought to justice in fair trials. By using methods that undermine the prospect of such justice and that lower society's standards, governments contribute to the cycle of insecurity and violence.
The threat of international terrorism requires law enforcement agencies to develop special skills and techniques in policing, investigation and intelligence, including international cooperation. Such techniques need to address the new characteristics of international terrorism, such as its use of the Internet and other new technology. That may require new forensic and other law enforcement techniques, but it cannot justify the use of old unlawful methods such as torture and ill-treatment.
Human rights are not a luxury for good times. They must be upheld always, including in times of danger and insecurity. Adherence to clear rules, laid down by international consensus in human rights treaties, is especially important during conflicts, emergencies or crises because at such times there is always some "necessity" that can be used to try and justify abuses, no matter how heinous. Respect for human rights is the route to security, not the obstacle to it.
One such treaty is the following:
Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons Under Any Form of Detention.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee has stated that "to ensure protection of the dignity of a person who is being searched by a state official, a body search should only be conducted by someone of the same sex" [ General Comment 16 to Article 17 of the ICCPR, "Compilation of General Comment and General Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies," UN Document HRI/GEN/Rev.3, 15 August 1997.].
You know I was listening to Air America on Sunday night and Laura Flanders had a women on from the Afghan Womens project to discuss Afghanistan and she said that the women were all saying the same thing and that is that they wanted us out of the country because of what we are doing. When Laura asked what are we doing the women said "torturing them".
These women were very upset that their brothers, fathers, sons etc. are being systematically tortured and we are no longer respected in Afghanistan and no longer welcome, because of this issue. It was also reported today that Karzai is trying to get us out as soon as possible.
Torture is always wrong and it does not "build character". Torture is a violent assault on the personhood, spirit or physical being of the individual - it is about breaking down the personality through a violation of the person whether physical or mental.
Prisoners at Gitmo are on a hunger strike and are ready to die to escape the horrific, uncivilized, brutal, systematic torture that they are subjected to.
In the name of humanity and to encourage peace and civility there must be a policy change.
What should the new policy be? Well, how about we use the Lincoln policy. Here is a comment I previously posted about the Lincoln policy.
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DailyKos
The laws of war are clear - we kill fighters on the battlefield if necessary and if they surrender we detain them so that they are no longer a threat. This is justice and it is American justice.
Throughout history America has honored the laws of war and treated those that have surrendered as human beings and in accordance with the American character we resisted the urge to torture our enemies.
Here is a great article written by a member of Human rights Watch regarding Lincoln and how he resisted the call for torture.
HRW
Being the only superpower means never having to say you're sorry. In the year since the first photos of humiliation and torture at Abu Ghraib prison were leaked, there has been a flurry of Pentagon studies, jump-started criminal investigations and disturbing new revelations in the media. Yet public attention has not translated into sustained public outcry. The Bush administration has been remarkably successful thus far in avoiding paying a political price for policies that are destined to endanger U.S. soldiers in future wars and harm America's long-term foreign policy interests.
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The Bush administration's attitude towards the laws of war is a radical departure from longstanding U.S. military practice. During the Korean War, the United States treated enemy soldiers in accordance with the Geneva Conventions even though none of the protagonists had yet to ratify the treaties. In Vietnam, captured Viet Cong were held as prisoners-of-war even though the letter of the law did not require it. It's an old and noble tradition: David Hackett Fischer in his recent book, Washington's Crossing, describes how General George Washington made sure that captured British and Hessian solders were treated humanely even though the British often executed captured Continentals. Washington wasn't just being generous: he understood that such treatment would over time best serve the interests of American soldiers.
Surprisingly little attention has been paid to President Bush's -- and everyone else's -- most admired president, Abraham Lincoln, on the laws of war. Despite the grave threat the Civil War posed to the nation, Lincoln recognized the value of broadly recognized rules of war that promote restraint and humanistic principles.
By late 1862 the bloody day at Antietam and the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation had totally changed the nature of the war. In Bruce Catton's words, "[t]he war now was a war to preserve the Union and to end slavery.... It could not stop until one side or the other was made incapable of fighting any longer; hence, by the standards of that day, it was going to be an all-out war - hard, ruthless, vicious...." Lincoln recognized that such a conflict required greater attention to war's customary rules, not less.
First was the problem of the legal status of captured Confederate soldiers. Lincoln did not want to recognize the rebellion of the southern states as legitimate, nor was it desirable or feasible to label all Johnny Rebs as traitors subject to execution. He needed a way to treat captured Confederate soldiers as prisoners of war without suggesting that the Confederate States of America was a lawful state.
Second, the hyper-expansion of the U.S. military from a peacetime force of 13,000 professional soldiers to multiple armies of several hundred thousand volunteers and conscripts placed huge burdens on military discipline. In northern Virginia and other areas under federal occupation, vandalism by Union forces was rampant. Whereas the old army could slowly inculcate new recruits with the traditional laws of war, the Civil War army, whose officers were often as green as its foot soldiers, required a clearly written set of rules of practical value.
Lincoln turned for advice to an émigré legal scholar, Francis Lieber, at Columbia College (now University) in New York City. Born in Berlin, Lieber as a teenager fought and was severely wounded during the Waterloo campaign. Prussian political repression brought him to the United States in 1827. He taught for many years in South Carolina, keeping quiet his strong abolitionist views until he transferred to Columbia's faculty in 1857.
More than his European upbringing, Lieber's views on the laws of war reflected his life in America: two of his sons fought for the Union, one losing an arm at Fort Donelson. And his eldest son, raised in the South, joined the Confederate ranks and was mortally wounded at the Battle of Williamsburg in May 1862. In a letter to Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, Lieber wrote: "I knew war as [a] soldier, as a wounded man in the hospital, as an observing citizen, but I had yet to learn it in the phase of a father searching for his wounded son, walking through the hospitals, peering in the ambulances."
Contrary to prevailing attitudes in the North, Lieber urged that Union forces on humanitarian grounds provide the privileges of belligerency to Confederate forces. This allowed Lincoln to dodge the thorny question of appearing to recognize the Confederacy while providing rebel soldiers the protections then normally due prisoners-of-war. (Bush appeared to be adopting this approach when he called for the humane treatment of Guantanamo detainees, but the practice never measured up to his words.)
This humanistic strain runs through Lieber's "Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field," which President Lincoln approved on April 24, 1863 as General Orders No. 100. The Lieber code, as it is now known, was the first recognized codification of the laws of war. As Lieber noted at the time, "nothing of the kind exists in any language. I had no guide, no ground-work, no text-book." Its 157 rules made a lasting place for Lieber -- and the United States -- in the development of the laws of war.
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Such caveats aside, the Lieber code consolidated important humanizing elements of warfare. Of particular note are Lieber's, and ultimately Lincoln's, views on the treatment of prisoners. Article 16 of the code boldly states: "Military necessity does not admit of cruelty--that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions." All forms of cruelty against prisoners are prohibited. Even the code's broad acceptance of military necessity does not provide a justification for torture.
General Orders No. 100 was distributed to the Union armies in the field and the standards set by the code seem to have been generally observed by both sides. At the close of the war, the code's precepts figured in the debate over Sherman's destructive "March to the Sea," and the trial and conviction of Captain Henry Wirtz, commandant of the notorious Confederate prison camp at Andersonville in Georgia.
The major powers of Europe quickly recognized the value of codified laws of war and Lieber's code became the model for Prussia and other armies on the continent. Ultimately this American vision of warfare and the treatment of prisoners became the basis for the major international treaties, namely the Hague Regulations at the turn of the nineteenth century and the Geneva Conventions. Geneva's strict prohibitions on torture and other cruel treatment can be traced through Lieber's own uncompromising language.
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George W. Bush has a long way to go before he can claim Abraham Lincoln's legacy to a humane articulation of the laws of war. It is a legacy that has long served the interests of the United States and for which Americans can genuinely be proud. It is a legacy that with each feckless Pentagon investigation and half-hearted war crimes prosecution becomes forever imperiled.
These torture policies are creating individuals in the Middle east and elsewhere who want justice for unnecessary suffering that have been inflicted at Gitmo and elsewhere.
The cruel Gitmo torture practices (that violate army regulations) put our troops at risk and are creating more and more enemies. Torture must stop and we must begin to focus on diplomacy and human rights for the good of the country.
PS It is also a good time to talk about humane treatment for our own prisoners who are also systematically degraded. Human rights for all is the only proper course of action and hopefully we will become the country that everyone else can look up to once again.