Same old story, but getting more uncivilized
Thinking about the war in Iraq, what lead up to it and the many aspects of it, one single phrase haunts me the most: "[...]our time in history will be remembered for new challenges and unprecedented dangers." I'm not too knowlegable about world history but it hardly seems plausible no nation has ever had something similar. Insurgencies are certainly nothing new. They haven't been that deadly. Now I know the American media (and people) have trouble sticking with a story that's not celebrity related (Hurricane Katrina is almost gone from memory), so is it related that they don't look to the past for a similar situation and its solution?
Also, watching The Torture Question on Frontline, I have to ask the question about how this is different from the Nazi's? For some reason it is a highly offensive to compare anything to the Nazi's to which I hope is because in the public square it would be a cheap political stunt (like 9/11 has become). So if your someone who gets annoyed at this go away. I think there are differences and they actually seem to be pointing in the opposite direction I'd expect. From what I know about the Nazi's they wanted no prisoners and so tried to kill all of them. The problem they faced was it became psychologically damaging to murder people since it is very personal to shoot someone in the head. So "bottom up" solutions where enacted and become the death camps literally abstracting the killing. From the radio shows and web info they always said this was developed by those on the ground not from the top. In the U.S. case (as you can see from the documentary) the top merely opened the gates for "harsh" interrogations and gave leeway to what harsh meant. So again you have a "bottom up" approach which created the worse abuses, not sanctioned at the top, but not clearly forbidden. The scary part is that the Nazi's did this to abstract the killing where as the Americans are making it more personal. Why is this scary? Because you aren't seeing the Heart of Darkness of a "monster", but looking deeper into the human Heart of Darkness that beats in all of us.
Also, watching The Torture Question on Frontline, I have to ask the question about how this is different from the Nazi's? For some reason it is a highly offensive to compare anything to the Nazi's to which I hope is because in the public square it would be a cheap political stunt (like 9/11 has become). So if your someone who gets annoyed at this go away. I think there are differences and they actually seem to be pointing in the opposite direction I'd expect. From what I know about the Nazi's they wanted no prisoners and so tried to kill all of them. The problem they faced was it became psychologically damaging to murder people since it is very personal to shoot someone in the head. So "bottom up" solutions where enacted and become the death camps literally abstracting the killing. From the radio shows and web info they always said this was developed by those on the ground not from the top. In the U.S. case (as you can see from the documentary) the top merely opened the gates for "harsh" interrogations and gave leeway to what harsh meant. So again you have a "bottom up" approach which created the worse abuses, not sanctioned at the top, but not clearly forbidden. The scary part is that the Nazi's did this to abstract the killing where as the Americans are making it more personal. Why is this scary? Because you aren't seeing the Heart of Darkness of a "monster", but looking deeper into the human Heart of Darkness that beats in all of us.
posted by Eddie | 1:26 AM
2 Comments:
Fixed. Thanks.
Heinrich Himmler, the commander of the SS, personally directed the execution of both POW's and political prisoners. He was the guy that controlled the concentration camps and who, together with Hitler, came up with the "Final Solution".
You call that bottom-up control?
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