The link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19018410/
Ridiculously hyperdramatic ending aside, I found this article interesting and a good demonstration of what is wrong with America as a superpower.
The American soldier and his experience are like a microcosm of our whole national worldview. I don't mean to trivialize his circumstance, he's a veteran, he served his country, and he deserves all the credit in the world, but he's as totally morally vacuous as much of America is today. “I used to have a strong sense of morals,” he says. “"That's the most confusing thing -- people don't hate me.” I don't think he ever had morals. He just let guilt, peer pressure and societal pressure steer him along, and he confuses that with being moral. He thinks people should hate him for what he did in Iraq, and he's disoriented when the external validation he seeks is absent.
Morality isn't imposed on us by the frowns or smiles of our peers. It comes from within.
He relates a story where a prisoner defied him and resisted his interrogation. “[A]t worst he smuggled a can of benzene. It was pure insanity. I wanted to take out my Gerber knife and chop off his fingers." A moral person doesn't get angry at somebody who bests them. A moral person doesn't feel the need to chop off somebody's fingers for no real reason. It's all dictated by his environment. He feels pressure from his peers and superiors to get results, and when he can't he feels unmanned and violent. He has no morality of his own. On some level that's his failing, but it's also the failure of our leadership. The leadership, the training, the management of interrogation in Iraq is, obviously, totally ridiculous. This guy is left to stumble through his job with no real talent for it, with no clear guidelines as to what is allowed, and with no clarity of purpose.
I certainly blame Bush, Rumsfeld and others for their role in this, but I'm not willing to ignore the role the left plays as well. When you send soldiers in combat, make them do violent things to violent people, and then start nitpicking them for being a little rough with a guy who just killed two of their buddies, you really confuse people. The assholes back home, nattering about what is and isn't torture, when they have no idea what's going on, and even less of a moral compass than this poor confused interrogator... Well, it's bound to fuck a guy's head up. The Democrats lack of moral purpose, they way their beliefs are dictated by the fickle whims of the voters... The way it maps to this guy is no coincidence. And the way the Republicans are following suit is a sure sign of our moral decay.
Compare all of this with the Israeli interrogator. He uses flattery, friendship, a minimum of physical violence. "You try to become friends with someone who murdered a baby. That's your job. It's the most difficult feeling." This guy has a goal, and he's going after it. He doesn't care if it makes him feel dirty hugging a murderer. He doesn't care if the murderer feels good or bad. He's not trying to hurt the guy for revenge or punishment. He's trying to get information. That's it. That's how one interrogates morally. You don't get angry and take it out on the prisoner. You don't take pleasure in hurting him. You get accurate information in the most efficient manner possible, with a minimum of violence. If you have to get violent, you do it, and you understand why it was necessary. You don't worry about what some politico says about you in order to score points with voters who have never been in your shoes.
Israelis, at least those who work for Shin Bet, have total clarity on what they're doing. Right or wrong, they know their enemy, they know their goals, and they get to work. Americans, by comparison, have no real idea what's going on, no real commitment to the idea that we need to fight Al Qaeda and their allies. It's all smuggled benzene to us. It's meaningless. One day we cut somebody's fingers off. The next day we feel sad and confused and let him and his people go. One more angry, fingerless guy out there, looking to get back at us.
No attention span, no clarity of purpose, no moral foundation. We're exactly the opulent paper tiger that bin Laden said we were.
In closing, I'll leave you with this image, which is EXACTLY what America is doing to the middle east right now:
“[American soldiers] bombarded [Iraqi prisoners] in metal shipping containers with the tape of the self-help parody "Feel This Book: An Essential Guide to Self-Empowerment, Spiritual Supremacy, and Sexual Satisfaction," by comedians Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo. ("They hated it," Lagouranis recalled. "Like, 'Please! Just stop that voice!' ")”
That is literally the most incredibly wonderful and terrible thing I have ever heard in my entire life. It makes me want to laugh and kill myself at the same time.
America, I love you and hate you so much. Please, just don't destroy yourself before my little boy has a chance to grow up?