What do we become when we support torture - from a fireman's wife

[adigal]

I was just responding to another thread. A poster said that if we had to "mistreat" a prisoner in order to get information from the 20th hijacker, then that was not a tragedy, as September 11th was. Well, my husband was a NYC fireman who was disabled by the clean-up and the lies of the administration about the air quality at the WTC. He was working on September 11th and I thought he was dead all day. So I had and still have a lot at stake and feel I would be more justified than most to believe that we should torture prisoners to save people like my husband and 3000 of my neighbors.

But I don't. I don't because when we treat others, even the worst prisoners, with disregard, or treat them as less than human, then we are disgracing ourselves. I strongly disagree with this, or other torturous types of behavior, done in my name. Can't people see that al Queda has won when we do these types of things? We have become our enemy. 3000 dead is not an excuse for anything. If you act like your enemy, you have become your enemy.

Osama bin Laden said that he will defeat us by bankrupting us - he is succeeding at this. But he will also defeat us if we abandon those ideals, of fairness and justice for all, for even the worst among us, just because we are scared.

[Suich]

1. My sentiments, exactly.

Thanks for posting it. I'm sorry about your husband...I hope he'll be ok.

[Nite Owl]

2. Sorry about your husband and I

hope he is doing better.

It is a valid point that you make. We lose as long as we become like those who took down the towers. We are losing our freedoms and that is ultimately what the goal was that day. The biggest mistake is to not appeal to 'our better angels' but to do as they have done to appeal to the anger and hate that is there. This administration has validated those feelings.

[pennylane100]

3. Thank you, for such an eloquent statement.

You have given words to my thoughts.

[Lerkfish]

4. beautiful, powerful post!

power to you.
sing it sister, I am in complete agreement.
If we lose our morals to save our way of life, we've lost both.

nominated.

[IndyOp]

5. Thank you adigal for sharing your story...

I am grateful to your husband for working on 9/11 and can only begin to imagine what you experienced waiting for your husband to return home on that day.

Two quotes from Booker T. Washington that sum up what I feel about those who would advocate torture:
"To hold a man down, you have to stay down with him."
"Character is power."

We protect our national character and our citizens by respecting human rights of all.

:kick:

[mcar]

6. You are so right

and Bless you and your husband, for everything you sacrificed to help others.

[adigal]

7. Thanks for your well wishes

He is better every year, but still suffers from asthma-like symptoms, especially in weather like this. I deep track of the dogs from the WTC, and they seem to be living out their expected lifespans, so that is encouraging.

Thanks again.

[mcscajun]

8. An outstanding post. Thank you so much for sharing.

And now I'll add my two cents to the discussion.

I've said this over and over, and I'll say it again here: If you condone torture (which I don't), then the next question is Who would want to become a torturer?

Anyone can rationalize a circumstance where they might see a value to torturing someone (IF you throw out all the very good arguments against it), but someone has to do the deed.

Will it be someone who really Wants the job? Say goodbye to your rationale; now whatever the primary aim, somebody's getting a thrill out of doing it...and that's just plain sick.

If it's not someone who wants the job, then you have two victims: the tortured, and the torturer...and that's a horror show.

Finally, as someone who grew up in NYC and once worked in the WTC, my best wishes to you and your husband.

[Zerex71]

9. Something else to consider:

Misplaced or misdirected anger like that doesn't serve any purpose. Our whole military-intelligence operations against Afghanistan and Iraq are nothing more than a giant "Don't F*ck With Us!" to those peoples. Do you think that 99.999% of them had anything to do with anything at all? Gitmo is all about that -- us taking our collective revenge, anger, hatred, and government-sanctioned brutality out on people who have nothing to do with this, by and large. The people who hit us on 9/11 -- guess what, they've been pulverized for almost five years. To believe the mythology of Bu$hCo that there are "terr'ists 'round ev'ry corner" is exactly what they want you to believe. I firmly believe that the folks (using Bush's own terminology on 9/11) who pulled off that operation effectively shot their wad for years to come, financially and from a manpower standpoint. Unless, of course, it was orchestrated at the highest levels of the military-government-industrial-intelligence complex out of such nations as Israel and/or Saudi Arabia.

Afghanistan was pure revenge but, surprise, we did nothing of any worth. We obliterated a lot of poor Little Brown People(TM) who had nothing to do with anything other than probably trying to mind their own lives. Then the Gator mines, napalm, and cluster bombs started to fall, and they officially became our Fourth World protectorate. But then we installed a former Unocal exec to look regal and resplendent in some robes and act like he had any control whatsoever of the Wild West-cum-world's largest opium factory when, in fact, there were daily attempts on his life, the Taliban is back in business, the poppy crop is at an all-time high, and still nothing has changed much over there.

Also, it has been shown that our "terror suspect" roundups, imprisonments, etc. have netted little, if any, "actionable intelligence" as the hair helmets in the MSM like to say. It's all show and window dressing. Remember the TSA? Yeah, that's on it's way out, believe it or not, and fat lotta good that did us.

Ultimately, my problem with statements like these is, "Well my husband/brother/father/mother/sister/son/daughter/etc. got killed/maimed/etc. from this so we should go out and nuke the world" -- to me it suggests that somehow, Americans are more worthy human beings. We're largely white, Protestant, and one of the countries with the largest pot of money in the globe, and somehow, with all our SUVs, DVDs, Hollywood, billion-dollar bullsh*t industries, etc., somehow, we think we're imbued with some greatness that says that for one American life, we must sacrifice a hundred or a thousand of those "lesser people" (that is, when we call them people instead of "insurgents", "terrorists", "enemy", etc.)

We are all going to perish from this Earth at some point, and as humans, no one among us is less than or greater than any other in the grand scheme of things. We must stop this moral equivalence and death calculus if we are ever going to progress in our thoughts.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

[glitch]

10. This is so basic it is a mystery to me that some people don't get it.

Thank you for posting. I hope you and your husband and the dogs you keep track of all do well.

[Pachamama]

11. Thank you Adigal...My husband & I lost 5 friends...not one of their family

members, nor us support this viewpoint of the poster you are referencing...I answered his post and stated so much...

I said I wanted to live in the United States of America - not Uzbekistan...

Peace to you Adigal...I feel for your loss...we have all been missing our loved ones since that day and the irony is not ever lost on me and the family members that the ones that seem to always yell the loudest and reference 9/11 didn't lose any family members or friends that day. Aside from Ted Olsen's wife, how many people do you think Bush & Cheney knew personally or loved?

Namaste

[adigal]

12. Great ideas and thoughts here, thanks

I agree - an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. How are we better than the day before September 11th, I want to know? We are not. We are worse. Many Americans have become our own Taliban, finding strength in funadamental religion, making the world black and white, labeling people either good or evil.

This may make for good ratings, but it harms us, and gives power to those among us who are violent and hateful. This is not how I want my kids to grow up; this is not who I am, or we are. I hope we can fix this before it is too late - if it is not too late already.