Dumbing Down Torture

Wednesday, June 15, 2005 Dumbing Down Torture What are the sources of all this anguish about the detainees in Gitmo? What is the underlying psychology pushing this hysteria about the alleged 'abuse' of these prisoners? The Left has an obvious agenda here: America is Mordor. We torture just for fun, and if the victims are oppressed third-worlders all the better. The Newsweek journalists and Michael Issikoff are not necessarily this type of crypto-socialist, trying to speed up the inevitable collapse of capitalism via the word processor. Issikoff probably thought he was 'correcting' abuses at Gitmo, in the name of aiding national security. After all, we don't want all those enraged muslims to be even angrier at us, do we? Instead what Issikoff did was feed right into the culture created by the self-loathing American Left that believes we deserved 9/11. It infuriates the Left that its allies all throughout history have been proven to be real torturers and killers. It is a very damning argument against them - it shows that they will engage in the most heinous means necessary to try and overthrow capitalism, all in service of the Grand Marxist Experiment. Never mind that Marxism was a genocidal failure that produced a modern dark age that makes medieval Europe look enlightened by comparison. Once it has been established that the United States is just as bad, the Left may once again freely support the progressive-murderer-of-the-week without guilt. And once again Marxism will be seen as a relatively palatable choice - after all, capitalism is just as bad, right? So why not take another look at socialism? This odious mindset has been purchased whole by the once-respectable Amnesty International, which perhaps needs this immoral equivalence between the U.S. and the forces of darkness precisely because Amnesty harbors guilt over its lack of investigating real abuses, such as in North Korea or Zimbabwe. Thus, detaining several hundred terrorists in balmy Guantanamo Bay magically becomes the equivalent of decades of forced labor for innocent millions in the arctic Gulag. Naturally the Left wants normal America to buy into this, and the tactic they have chosen is to dumb down torture. Now, loud music is 'torture'. Putting ladies underwear on a man's head is now a 'torture'. The mere presence of a woman in front of pious muslim men is 'torture'. Does this notion offend the feminists? No, because truly tolerant Leftists perfectly understand that muslims consider women to be loathsome, and we need to respect that. This dumbing down torture tactic has largely worked unfortunately, and now millions of otherwise insightful Americans now believe that we are torturing people, because they have only caught the merest whiff of this story, and have not had a chance to look at the entire record. The Europeans too, feeling deep guilt over their own history of genocide and inventing murderous philosophies, naturally ache for the relief brought by being able to point the finger at someone else. Such anti-Americanism gives cover to their neuroses. Worst of all, this story gives cover to the many third world regimes that can now avoid opprobrium by pointing at the United States. 'Is this your democracy?' the Bashar Assad types will sneer, grateful that they too now have the immoral equivalence weapon in their arsenal. Linked to Outside The Beltway and Mudville Gazette. 6:06 AM | | |