RealClearPolitics - Obama Gets It Wrong on Churchill & Torture
Not a badly written article -- covers the same issue on BO being wrong on Britan torturing in WWII. Brings in the point that things like firebombing Dresden, nuking Hiroshama and Nagasaki, allowing Coventry to be bombed to protect the knowledge of the codebreaking, interning Japanese in the US and no doubt thousands of other things in WWII (or any war) are "shortcuts".
War is about inflicting more pain on your enemy than on your own soldiers and civilians -- that is how one is most likely to win the war. It isn't a pretty thing, that is why we call it War. There was a brief time in Europe when war was at least visualized to have "honor" -- the British wore red coats and marched in columns while the "terrorists" of the day, the US forces hid in the woods and picked them off. The British found that to be "dishonorable" -- we called it "winning".
I think his last paragraph hits the nail on the head. In "ugly things", we are OFTEN working very hard to find a "shortcut" -- maybe some old surgeon would say that orthoscopic surgery is a "shortcut" for example. Maybe another 3, 5, 10 or even 100K Americans could have died not finding out one or more plot that was discovered by "putting the screws to" the guys that had information that helped the Bush administration stop the attacks. Were those American's lives worth less than what BO sees as "the character cost" of having a known al Quaeda opertive exposed to the same techniqe we use on our own troops to simulate torture?
Maybe BO doesn't understand "simulated vs real". Why did he need a "real" picture of Air Force One flying at low level around NYC? It was fake anyway -- it isn't AF-1 unless the President is on it. It is the person of the President on the plane that gives it that designation, not the paint job. A photoshop using the plane taken when he was on it (or any other President -- it is the OFFICE that has the majesty, not the person or the props!) with the Statue of Liberty in the background would be identically as "genuine" -- at least the plane would be real!
Not a badly written article -- covers the same issue on BO being wrong on Britan torturing in WWII. Brings in the point that things like firebombing Dresden, nuking Hiroshama and Nagasaki, allowing Coventry to be bombed to protect the knowledge of the codebreaking, interning Japanese in the US and no doubt thousands of other things in WWII (or any war) are "shortcuts".
War is about inflicting more pain on your enemy than on your own soldiers and civilians -- that is how one is most likely to win the war. It isn't a pretty thing, that is why we call it War. There was a brief time in Europe when war was at least visualized to have "honor" -- the British wore red coats and marched in columns while the "terrorists" of the day, the US forces hid in the woods and picked them off. The British found that to be "dishonorable" -- we called it "winning".
I think his last paragraph hits the nail on the head. In "ugly things", we are OFTEN working very hard to find a "shortcut" -- maybe some old surgeon would say that orthoscopic surgery is a "shortcut" for example. Maybe another 3, 5, 10 or even 100K Americans could have died not finding out one or more plot that was discovered by "putting the screws to" the guys that had information that helped the Bush administration stop the attacks. Were those American's lives worth less than what BO sees as "the character cost" of having a known al Quaeda opertive exposed to the same techniqe we use on our own troops to simulate torture?
Maybe BO doesn't understand "simulated vs real". Why did he need a "real" picture of Air Force One flying at low level around NYC? It was fake anyway -- it isn't AF-1 unless the President is on it. It is the person of the President on the plane that gives it that designation, not the paint job. A photoshop using the plane taken when he was on it (or any other President -- it is the OFFICE that has the majesty, not the person or the props!) with the Statue of Liberty in the background would be identically as "genuine" -- at least the plane would be real!
It might seem otherwise, but I'm not making the case for what some people see as torture. I'm simply noting that war is always about shortcuts - all are horrible; some are necessary. If Obama doesn't understand that, let's hope he never has to learn it.
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