No, torture and war are still not okay

This is a quick, sloppy response to something I've seen floating around the internet for years, but which my cousin just posted to Facebook, prompting me to feel as though a response was necessary while I work on another post with lots of good stuff in it. As this was a quickie, I left out links and sources, but if you want them, just ask.

Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001 and have continually threatened to do so since?

The very notion of fighting a military "war on terror" and somehow bombing and torturing the world free of terrorism shows, right of the bat, a complete lack of serious thought or knowledge of the issues surrounding the terrorism that we are supposed to be fighting. And, well, it wasn't started then, actually. The events of September 11, 2001 are merely a culmination of a long history of events that preceded it, including a long history of American military intervention as well as injustices perceived from the United States unequivocal support for Israel in its policies toward Palestine and Lebanon among others. It started long before Sept. 11, 2001 and the notion that it did shows a disturbing lack of historical knowledge for anyone who even wants to speak about such things.

Were people from all over the world, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from the capitol of the USA and in a field in Pennsylvania ?

Yes they were. Is the proper response to murder not to round up and prosecute those who perpetrated it through widespread policing action? Rather than a global law enforcement effort however, the United States, Canada, and all our NATO allies have been bombing the hell out of a defenseless country, and propping up a government that is no better for the Afghan people than the Taliban was. (And, ironically, increasing popular rural support for the Taliban as an occupation resistance movement.)

Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?

Again, yes they did. How many innocent men, women and children have been killed by NATO action in Afghanistan? Are their lives somehow worth less than those of the lives lost on Sept. 11? Estimates are around 7500 so far. Are we even yet? Killing does not justify more killing. It becomes an endless cycle. They attack, we attack, they attack again in retaliation. It will never result in an end to terrorism or violence of any sort.

And I'm supposed to care that a few Taliban were claiming to be tortured by a justice system of the nation they come from and are fighting against in a brutal insurgency?

The Taliban are a regional political force with little to no involvement in 9/11. They just want to control the AfPak region, more or less. That aside, torture has been shown to be problematic on three fronts: There are many who have been tortured who have nothing to do with terrorism. They were detained and shipped off without evidence or charge for years and years. Innocent people. Assuming that the people captured and subsequently tortured by NATO forces are automatically terrorists again shows a considerable lack of knowledge of how things are actually going. If they really were all terrorists

Which brings me to the second point: Doing this simply inspires more hatred and terrorism. A lot of noise was made about "terrorist recidivism after detainees were released, but there was no evidence they were involved in terror in the first place. As such, it is reasonable to assume it was their mistreatment which led them to becoming involved with terrorist activity. In addition to that, this enhances the view that America/the West is unjust and conducting a war on an entire culture, resulting in others to take up the cause of terrorism as well.

Thirdly, from a strictly strategic point of view, information obtained through torture is rarely, if ever, accurate or useful. As such, it serves no legitimate military/strategic purpose, even if the person captured is a known terrorist.

Oh, also, it's a war crime. That might be worth mentioning too. You know, those principles that were agreed upon by basically the entire world at the end of World War 2? Yeah, they still hold sway, and torture is a direct violation. (And really, do we WANT to lower ourselves to their level in stating that "Well they did horrible stuff to us!")

I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

Fun fact: The Taliban government actually offered to hand over bin Laden to a third country if the bombing of Afghanistan was halted and evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in the September 11 attacks was given. This offer was rejected by President Bush because, as he stated in response, "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."

I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere belief of which is a crime punishable by beheading in Afghanistan.

The idea that the Taliban represents mainstream Islamic belief shows a severe understanding of not only Islam but basic common sense: There are a billion and a half Muslims in the world. Most of them have no desire to decapitate Christians or anyone else for that matter. In fact, the anti-Islam sentiment that blames all of the Muslim religion for all the world's problems is no better than the anti-Semitism that blamed the Jews for all the world's problems.

I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.

Another horrible crime that should be handled with an international policing response rather than bombing the hell out of more Afghan villages and then torturing whoever is captured even when there is no actual evidence against them.

I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Afghanistan come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques and behind women and children.

Afghanistan has a long and rich history of fighting off occupying forces (the Soviets, the British, etc.). This notion that they must be fighting unfairly to have been able to withstand the onslaught of NATO forces is quite ill informed at best. (And almost reeks of an attempt to justify or at least shift blame for the death of innocents that might have been pushed into the way by insurgent forces.

I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.

Refer to my response to #4 about the issues relating to torture. In the meantime, it's also important to understand why these bombings take place. They indeed believe that martyrdom is a great honour for them, but we have to figure out what is it about their situation that makes them feel as though martyrdom and indiscriminate killing is necessary. Until we understand WHY we will never be able to successfully combat the problem. Understanding is not justifying, I should add. As a point of example, taking painkillers for a chronic pain you don't know the source of will not solve the problem, and will likely allow the source of the pain to become worse. As simplistic an analogy as that seems, it is more or less the way we should approach all problems. Treat the cause, not just the symptoms.

I'll care when the Canadian media stops pretending that their freedom of speech on stories is more important than the lives of the soldiers on the ground or their families waiting at home to hear about them when something happens.

Isn't freedom of speech one of those freedoms that soldiers are allegedly fighting for? I mean, that's what I have gathered, troops are always, no matter the nature of the conflict, fighting for our freedoms. And the freedom of the press to cover all aspects of a story, even, yes, the war in Afghanistan, is a necessity to a truly free and democratic society. Never mind that this a completely false dichotomy and freedom of speech in Canada has little bearing on the survival of troops. (In fact a proper discussion might result in ensuring their survival by bringing them home.)

In the meantime, when I hear a story about a CANADIAN soldier roughing up an Insurgent terrorist to obtain information, know this:

I don't care.

Well, again, what if the person they are "roughing up" (if you consider things like slicing a detainee's genitals with a scalpel to be "roughing up") is not in fact a terrorist? (As many of them show no evidence of being.) Do you care then? What if the roles were reversed and they took innocents with no evidence, held them for years without charge and tortured them. You would be appalled. And, I reiterate, the information actually gained through torture is rarely useful or accurate.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank:

I don't care.

Again, is there significant evidence to suggest this hypothetical person is a terrorist and might be strapped with explosives? Again, what if the roles were reversed? Would you care then? And ultimately, as I said above, we need to understand that if this person WAS in fact strapped with explosives, that he probably would not be if he was not trying to fight off an occupying force in his country. The mere presence of an occupying force is historically consistent in resulting in insurgent violence using tactics that are quite crude when there is no real military they can avail of to fight the occupier.

When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed 'special' food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts:

I don't care.

Once again (I feel like a broken record here) the detainees held are more often than not being held without charge or evidence. They are, as far as we know, victims of circumstance and undeserving of any mistreatment. Once again, I have to wonder what the reaction would be if the roles were reversed. (And really, I don't have to use my imagination to know.) On top of that, don't think that having "special" food and religious texts in any way shape or form makes a military prison Club Med.

And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled 'Koran' and other times 'Quran.' Well, Jimmy Crack Corn you guessed it,

I don't care!

Both are legitimate spellings. No issue here.

On Gaza Appendix

Some great information (videos, articles, what have you) on the Gaza/Palestine/Israel situation:

The Real News Network: Who and what is Hamas?
Guardian: UN levels war crimes warning at Israel
The Huffington Post: Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe
VBS.TV: Palestine vs. Israel - Against the Wall (Par 1 of 6) - A look at the situation in the West Bank.
Znet: Israel must lose - An open letter signed by a litany of academics.
Znet: Gaza Q&A

Petitions to sign:
Amnesty International: Civilians must be protected in Gaza and Israel
Campaign for Peace and Democracy: No blank check for Isael!

Be sure to check out the links in the post itself, also.

On Gaza

So Israel is still bombing the fuck out of Gaza (pardon my French) and have invaded as well. About a thousand Palestinians killed and about 4,400 injured so far. This is something that has been really bothering me from the beginning. The notion that discussion of this situation is even controversial makes my head want to explode a la that one scene in Scanners. The complete disconnect from reality that seems to exist in the minds of Israel's most hardcore supporters takes that to a whole other level.

There are a lot of things about the entire situation that bother me. The complete repression of the Palestinian people, which has been described by officials from South Africa who lived under Apartheid as "infinitely worse" than Apartheid; the complete denial of any wrongdoing on Israel's part, including denying that there is any kind of humanitarian problem that has arisen as a result of either its 18-month blockade of Gaza or the bombing itself; the notion that bombing the hell out of a given people will somehow create any semblance of peace with those people.

There was a debate on Democracy Now! on January 5th between Christopher Gunness of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and Meagan Buren, senior advisor of The Israel Project, that illustrates the disconnect from reality that the supporters of Israel's treament of not only the current Gaza situation, but the Palestinian people in general, seem to experience. "But for over eight years now, we’ve been talking about rockets coming into Israel. Let’s talk about that word 'proportionality' for a moment. What should Israel do? ... What would proportionality be every time Hamas fires a rocket discriminately targeting civilians? Israel should fire a rocket back? One rocket for one rocket back into civilian territories? ... I can’t accept the argument that rockets are justifiable because of occupation ... Israel left all of Gaza three years ago in hopes of peace, like I’ve already stated. In hopes of peace, they pulled every soldier, every settler out of Gaza" And finally, my favourite part of that interview:

AMY GOODMAN: Are you denying that there is a humanitarian crisis? Meagan Buren, are you denying there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza?

MEAGAN BUREN: I’m not in Gaza right now. And frankly, I find it hard to take Hamas at its word. And I have to say that Israel continues to send in thousands and thousands of tons of food and supplies—

CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: Take the UN at its word. There is a humanitarian crisis. Take the UN—

AMY GOODMAN: Christopher Gunness—

MEAGAN BUREN: —every single day.

AMY GOODMAN: Christopher Gunness is not Hamas. He’s with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: And I’m saying there’s a humanitarian crisis. Please answer that.

MEAGAN BUREN: OK, well, Christopher Gunness is saying that there’s a humanitarian crisis. I’m saying it’s unfortunate that all of the food and supplies that are going in from Israel into Gaza, Hamas isn’t distributing to its people. Remember, there is another border with Gaza, with Egypt.

AMY GOODMAN: Christopher Gunness, is that the case, that Hamas—let me put that question to the person on the ground in Gaza. Is that the case? It’s Hamas that’s stopping the distribution of food and medicine?

CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: I have heard no reports of Hamas hoarding food, but I have to say that there is a war going on, and our workers are not getting out to everywhere where they normally get out to. Our food distributions are going on, and we’re saying we need more petrol, we need more fuel, and we need more grain. And if we don’t get that, the humanitarian crisis will deepen, and a lot more people will suffer and be made more radical and even less likely to be partners in peace.

You can listen to the entire program, including the debate here:

Download audio

You read that right. She is so dedicated to this idea that Israel can seemingly do no wrong that she first writes off the notion of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza as propaganda from Hamas, and then when called on that, she just blames it on Hamas anyway. Brilliant. Christopher Gunness gets it. Meagan Buren and those she represents, do not.

What is it that Christopher Gunness gets, but Meagan Buren does not? When you dispossess a group of people in a very violent, uncompromising way, this will inevitably create a very desperate and radical element that will fight back against that oppression. Meagan Buren said that Gaza was not occupied. Well, that's not exactly true. There weren't Israeli troops on the ground in Gaza, that much is true. That's not the only form of occupation, however. Israel controlled both the border and airspace of Gaza. The people of Gaza, believe it or not, were suffering as a result.

Now, the problem with taking this line of reasoning is that people automatically consider this "justification" for terrorist acts. People just can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea that you can explain something without justifying it. (And God help you if you make the argument that something Israel is doing might be wrong, lest you be called an anti-semite, the last refuge of anyone who has no argument and just wants to discredit any criticism of Israel. Making any criticism of Israel into an act of anti-semitism is a pretty swift way to shut down a debate. It's complete and utter bullshit, of course, but it's an easy out for the Israel can do no wrong crowd.) The notion that explanation is somehow justification was illustrated nicely in the above debate as well. Historically speaking though, it is quite accurate. There is a really great book by social critic Mike Davis called Buda's Wagon that outlines the history of the use of car bombs as a tactic. It provides a really good framework for understanding the use of terrorism in response to such situations.

One example from Buda's Wagon is Corsica. The Corsican people—who had become marginalized by the pied noir viniculturalists who had been expelled from Algeria in 1962, but migrated to Corsica to take over the wine industry thanks to preferential treatment from the French government—brought significant attention to their cause through a significant campaign of bombings against the pied noirs. Another example Davis provides is Saigon, which saw Viet Cong guerrillas effectively use car bombings to drive the American presence out of Saigon into a self contained “military suburb” called the Long Bingh complex. This came after the American presence displaced large numbers of people—many entire neighbourhoods—forcing them into shantytowns and slums on the outskirts of Saigon, so that American military and business presences could reside there.

There are several other exaples in the book of car bombings used as a terrorist tactic in similar situations. The basic premise is that you cannot repress an entire people without expecting them to rise up. This is exactly why the continued bombing and subsequent invasion of Gaza is only going to cause more harm than good. I like to think of terrorism in general, including that perpotrated by Palestinian radicals upon Israel as a symptom of a disease. You can do whatever you can to treat the symptoms, but they'll just keep coming back until you do something about the disease itself. The disease, in this case, is egregious injustices perpotrated against an entire people. Supporters of Israel seem to think the disease is the Palestinian (or Arab) people in general.

A friend of mine posted a video on Facebook the other day in which AlterNet.org's Max Blumenthal spoke to attendees of a pro-Israel rally in New York, which was also attended by some big-name Democratic politicians. Th attendance of these big-name politicians alone is problematic, but not at all surprising. What's really disturbing is that some of these people seem to want to wipe out the Palestinians altogether without even a hint of irony. That's fucked up. One girl in the video even called this another holocaust, because the Jews are being persecuted for "like, the trillionth time." Again, completely without irony. The first time I saw that, I thought she was referring to how the Israelis are treating the Palestinians, until she said they're being persecuted for the trillionth time. It is amazing. If it wasn't so scary, it'd be almost comical.

Again, what these people fail to realize is that this is not going to stop terrorism from being directed towards them, and in fact will likely cause further animosity from the Arab world for the slaughter and ongoing repression of the Palestinians. I have to wonder if the people in the above video even know both sides of the story. Media coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict in the United States is horrendously one-sided in favour of Israel. The dehumanising nature of their coverage of Palestinian deaths, coupled with their ultra-humanising coverage of any Israeli tragedy certainly doesn't help them understand the situation. In all likelihood, they simply know there is someone attacking the homeland of their people, so fuck those guys, let's kill them. For a good look at just how this type of thing is presented in the media, check out the documentary Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land.

It's astounding how such a willful disregard for human rights can be so roundly ignored by the American media, the American government and the supporters of Israel. Every country in the United Nations called for a ceasefire, but it was vetoed by the United States. I could go on and on into the American complacency (scratch that; outright support) of the United States for Israel, but I'm trying to keep this relatively short. Suffice it to say that Joe the Plumber's belief that Obama's presidency will mean the death of Israel is a little on the delusional side. Israel is the child that can do no wrong in the US's eyes.

There is no easy answer to the Israel/Palestine situation, but there are a few things that really need to happen for any kind of progress to be made. There needs to be a political, two-state solution first and foremost. As long as the Palestinians are under occupation by the Israelis, there will be no hope for progress. Of course this won't solve every problem, and there is going to be a lingering resentment toward Israel for the treatment of the Palestinians over the course of history. Even a two-state solution respecting the 1967 borders and Palestinian control of Gaza's borders and airspace, as well as the issue of the settlements in the West Bank being dealt with will not create absolute peace at this point, but it will be a very strong step forward in establishing a framework for peace.