The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Monday, September 27, 2004
When Law is not Enough
The American Thinker has a thoughtful column written by Bob Wier of Houston, which argues that sometimes boundaries have to be stretched when dealing with Islamist zealots who would gladly die while killing us all:
We’re dealing with a well-trained group of suicidal zealots who have been indoctrinated to believe that they will go to Heaven if they murder “the American infidels.” In their unilateral view of the world, Western civilization must be destroyed. Indeed, if they had the wherewithal to blanket our country with neutron bombs today, we’d very likely soon have the odor of decomposing flesh in our nostrils, if we were alive to smell it.
So, with all of that said, what would the average citizen be willing to do to rid us of this deadly infestation? Suppose you knew for a fact that your family were in imminent danger of being murdered by allies of the terrorists we currently have in our jails. Suppose, further, that you knew a confession from the prisoners would save the lives of your family. Would you be willing to have the authorities use torture to force confessions?
Leave aside the controversy over whether or not torture works at extracting the truth, and assume that certain techniques do. If your answer is no, then you evidently think it’s more noble to allow your family to suffer and die, than it is to inflict pain upon your enemies. As far as I’m concerned that’s not nobility, it’s stupidity. Worse, it’s a flawed philosophy that jeopardizes our attempts to withstand the threat to our survival.
Certainly not the kind of moral dilemma that we face every day. But in fighting a war for the very survival of our way of life, it is important for we Americans to have this perspective when it comes to news reports such as Abu Grahib (you will remember, this story was also broken by Mary Mapes...). The fact that a few individuals made some people put panties over their heads does not quite equate to crashing a jetliner into the World Trade Center and killing thousands. We do not want to turn into a nation that condones barbarianism; but neither do we want to become a nation that allows others to murder indiscriminately or allows the media to make a huge PR mess of our war effort and cause us to lose this war on the home front because we did not have the collective will to do “what is necessary.” We must not let the liberal elites in this country prevent us from doing whatever is necessary to win this war. Mr. Wier concludes:
In other words, it’s easy to be generous with your sympathy toward the arsonist when the other guy’s house is on fire. Picture this: there’s a guy in police custody who knows the location of a bomb that’s set to explode in an elementary school building that holds 500 children. Threats and intimidation have failed to make him reveal the address of the school and the location of the device. You think that a certain interrogation technique defined as torture would loosen his tongue and save all those innocent lives. What would you do? C’mon, the clock is ticking. Make a decision.
Five hundred little helpless children against the life of some murderous creature who corrupts the atmosphere of life with every breath he takes. Should you think lofty thoughts about the slippery slope toward totalitarianism, should you quote the Constitution, chapter and verse, or should you beat the bejeebers out of the scumbag until he fesses up? Which course of action is most noble? You decide.
The man has a point…
We’re dealing with a well-trained group of suicidal zealots who have been indoctrinated to believe that they will go to Heaven if they murder “the American infidels.” In their unilateral view of the world, Western civilization must be destroyed. Indeed, if they had the wherewithal to blanket our country with neutron bombs today, we’d very likely soon have the odor of decomposing flesh in our nostrils, if we were alive to smell it.
So, with all of that said, what would the average citizen be willing to do to rid us of this deadly infestation? Suppose you knew for a fact that your family were in imminent danger of being murdered by allies of the terrorists we currently have in our jails. Suppose, further, that you knew a confession from the prisoners would save the lives of your family. Would you be willing to have the authorities use torture to force confessions?
Leave aside the controversy over whether or not torture works at extracting the truth, and assume that certain techniques do. If your answer is no, then you evidently think it’s more noble to allow your family to suffer and die, than it is to inflict pain upon your enemies. As far as I’m concerned that’s not nobility, it’s stupidity. Worse, it’s a flawed philosophy that jeopardizes our attempts to withstand the threat to our survival.
Certainly not the kind of moral dilemma that we face every day. But in fighting a war for the very survival of our way of life, it is important for we Americans to have this perspective when it comes to news reports such as Abu Grahib (you will remember, this story was also broken by Mary Mapes...). The fact that a few individuals made some people put panties over their heads does not quite equate to crashing a jetliner into the World Trade Center and killing thousands. We do not want to turn into a nation that condones barbarianism; but neither do we want to become a nation that allows others to murder indiscriminately or allows the media to make a huge PR mess of our war effort and cause us to lose this war on the home front because we did not have the collective will to do “what is necessary.” We must not let the liberal elites in this country prevent us from doing whatever is necessary to win this war. Mr. Wier concludes:
In other words, it’s easy to be generous with your sympathy toward the arsonist when the other guy’s house is on fire. Picture this: there’s a guy in police custody who knows the location of a bomb that’s set to explode in an elementary school building that holds 500 children. Threats and intimidation have failed to make him reveal the address of the school and the location of the device. You think that a certain interrogation technique defined as torture would loosen his tongue and save all those innocent lives. What would you do? C’mon, the clock is ticking. Make a decision.
Five hundred little helpless children against the life of some murderous creature who corrupts the atmosphere of life with every breath he takes. Should you think lofty thoughts about the slippery slope toward totalitarianism, should you quote the Constitution, chapter and verse, or should you beat the bejeebers out of the scumbag until he fesses up? Which course of action is most noble? You decide.
The man has a point…
