Tuesday, June 21, 2005
[posted by jaed at 9:49 PM]The Anchoress Speaks
And she saith:
Words mean things. “Torture” means more than rap music: "And if President Bush had a D after his name, instead of an R, the same people who vilify him would be calling him a great liberator and defender of human rights throughout the world. And Amnesty International would perhaps be looking at France’s treatment of people in the Ivory Coast, or China’s crackdown on Christians, or perhaps the whole world would be looking at the horrors of Dafur, and doing something to save the people who are living through daily torture. Daily. Torture.Tell it, sister.
You know, it's not hard to say that this or that incident or technique used in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay crosses the line, without going on to compare it to Auschwitz, for fuck's sake. It's not difficult to express discomfort with, or even to condemn, interrogation techniques that depend on causing physical discomfort, without going on to conflate "playing loud music" with torture. It's not an impossibility to defend the rights of terrorists without going on to exalt them as innocent victims like those of the Holocaust and the Gulag. You can debate the course and policies of war without uttering moral obscenities.
I have seldom been as disgusted with a good percentage of my countrymen as I am at this moment.
