But western civilization throughout its history HASN’T been characterized by pacifism or ethical qualms about mistreating the enemy. Although I disagree with his assessment and conclusions, Der Trihs is right about how much of both American and world history has been filled with violence.
On the other hand, Der Trihs’s belief that modern culture has evolved beyond our past is naive. Human nature hasn’t changed, and it never will… and human nature is at its base a brutish and ugly thing.
This doesn’t mean that we should allow our violent tendencies to run rampant. It does mean that we need to keep those emotions in check in order for society to function, and this requires, IMO, strong and powerful leadership. Sometimes, world leaders need to employ ruthless tactics in order to prevent civil disorder from erupting, which would only lead to uncontrollable violence that everyone will suffer from (this necessity of course will vary from situation to situation–if a leader, like Hitler, inflicts cruel and arbitrary violence on society, then he’s clearly on the wrong side of the equation).
Now, people will say “oh, no, we can’t descend to the level of the terrorists, that makes us no better than them.” To that, I would say we have no other choice. Violence is the only language this enemy (Islamist fanatics) understands. And since violence is part of human nature, and because ethics really have no place in political policy (read Machiavelli if you don’t understand this yet), we shouldn’t be worried about any ethical equivalency between us and our enemy. We’ll be on a higher level than them when it comes to political and military power, and that’s what counts.
But then, people will say “oh, no, our tactics will only inflame the enemy and create more opposition.” Sorry, but we’re talking about an enemy who gets upset when a teacher names a teddy bear “Muhammed” and when some cartoonists in Denmark draw some funny pictures of their “Prophet.” There’s really very little that we can do that will NOT inflame them.
The more important issue, I think, is to keep our PR image intact (it isn’t anymore). Since most people aren’t comfortable with the inner workings of political power, they don’t like to hear about things like interrogation tactics (even though they realize it’s necessary for us to catch criminals or to stop terrorists). It’s like the slaughterhouse–we like to eat meat, but we don’t like to know how it’s made.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration hasn’t done a very good job with this. We (speaking for national policy as a whole here, not as a member of the administration) want the terrorists to believe that we use things like waterboarding, so that they’ll be more cooperative. But we don’t want the American people or our allies to think we do, because then they’ll raise a big stink about the (irrelevant) ethical issues. The administration has tried, not entirely successfully, to steer a middle course by declaring that “we don’t torture people” and at the same time refusing to say whether or not waterboarding qualifies as torture (if it is, then our declaration is a lie…but if it isn’t, it’s not a lie).
It would be beautiful if the president could one day say, “Hell, yes, we torture the scum who blow up innocent men, women, and children; that way, they and their little friends can’t blow up any more innocent civilians. You got a problem with that?” But until more people realize that we need to get our hands dirty to win this (like any other) war, this debate will go on and on.