My local newspaper recently published this expanded version of one of my recent posts.
I do not know how long the link will be active, if it fails and you’re still interested, send me an email.
The OpEd elicited this response in the letters to the Editor (3rd letter):
Torture unacceptable
When I was young, I used to call others names when I didn’t like or agree with them. I also used to use others’ bad behavior as a rationale for my own.Obviously, Duane Hershberger (Viewpoints, June 3) has not evolved from his adolescent past.
Not every suspect being held in Guantanamo and other U.S. prisons around the globe are “terrorist fascists.” And, because torture happens in other countries should not be justification for U.S. agents to commit torture.America is the greatest country on Earth and I expect our government to set the highest standard for moral behavior. Torture is morally wrong and in most cases ineffective.
Ask Sen. John McCain.
Phillip Korrey
East Lansing
Note: I never mentioned, much less condoned torture. I did not mention torture occurring in any other country. I’m unsure if Mr. Korrey actually read what I wrote.
I am sure that any defense of the United States would have been bothersome for him.
Serendipitously, today, Mark Steyn points out that of 300 plus jihadists released from detention at Guantanamo, at least 12 have been recaptured on the battlefield.
He also notes the utter lack of interest from Islamist fanatics in “the recent suicide bombing at a mosque in Kandahar, which killed 20, wounded more than 50 and presumably desecrated every Quran in the building.”
Nonetheless, we’re continually subjected to semiotically confused tirades, such as Mr. Korrey’s, regarding simple facts about prisoner treatment at Guantanamo. Even if Guantanamo holds a few “not strictly Islamofascist” prisoners, the fact they were shooting at Americans when captured trumps any attempt to hijack rational discourse by naming them victims.
I’m tired of this frenzied condemnation of the United States as evil if it isn’t perfect. (TOTH to Victor Davis Hanson.)
The knee-jerk presumption of American wickedness needs to cease, at least until the rest of the world is within “spitting” distance of US virtue.