Political Apologetics and the American Way of Guilt

"We're fighting a war for civilization against an enemy bent on destroying it and creating an Islamic world based on a warped view of what true Islam is." Mary Laney

Will our openness to outsiders, our democratic system and our Christian compassion, precisely the values that we cherish the most, render the West incapable of withstanding Jihad? Fjordman

“Multiculturalism has seemed to imply...let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles, its joys, its pains,” John Sentamu, Archbishop of York.

Beginning in the 1960s, in part because of our longstanding alliance with Israel, the US was dragged into the growing Salafi Jihadist and Shia conflict against the West. We have undergone multiple attacks, both on our territory and on our embassies and on our nationals in other countries, acts committed by shadowy groups not officially sponsored by any one government, but given aid and support by multiple governments, a media that chooses to portray us as the villain.

In return, we have poured billions of dollars out in foreign aid, protected the rights of Moslems in the former Yugoslavia, helped to rescue Kuwait after it was overrun by a fellow Moslem country, seen our personnel butchered in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, heard ourselves blamed for everything that could possibly go wrong in the Moslem sphere, including being accused of causing the tsunami, yet were there with open hands at times of disaster and need.

Yet still, even after 9/11 should have driven home the realization that the Jihadiya was not just talking, that they actually wanted to do just what they said, bring down our country, our economy, our way of life, and spread their vision of Islam over a world that did not ask for it, what do we find ourselves doing? Apologizing. Compromising our safety. Backing down when people say mean things about us, as if WE were the aggressor, as if WE started this conflict.

We are not the aggressor. Even if they wear their victimhood like a scarlet robe, flaunting it in their faces, WE DID NOT CREATE THE PROBLEM. We did not go out of our way to be morally reprehensible. We have worked for policies and strategies that are in our best interest, but this is a universal. We have often foregone acting in our own defense, because we wanted to do the morally upright thing. It was they who brought the conflict home to us. It was Islamic countries that kept those who fled their homeland in what is now Israel in refugee camps, refusing to let them be integrated into the countries they fled to, so that they could be a tool against Israel, a country that was created by the UN, not by England, not by the US, but by UN vote. Yet too many of us act guilty as if we did it.

Look at the outrage that goes on about Gitmo. This is a place where people who have fought against us are taken. People who have done atrocities, or who have chosen to fight in open battle, not criminals picked up off of the street. Mary Laney reminds us:

We are at war. Our soldiers are following the rules of war -- but their opposition is not.

CIA counterterrorism officers are buying private insurance to cover legal costs in case they are charged with a crime, as is being hinted at by some members of Congress who feel their interrogation techniques might be too "tough."

In Iraq, Americans have been kidnapped, tortured, beheaded, burned, hanged from bridges, dragged through streets. But the CIA's method of questioning a terrorist in a cold room while playing loud music is too "tough"? (source)

These are our ENEMIES who have tried to kill us, who have organized to attack us, who spread the gospel of Jihad against us. They are not innocents, or street gangsters, or kids who light fireworks. The rules are different for them, and we do have a right to question them. Yet the PC fingers have poked their way here, making the job hard.

"The politically correct regulations are unbelievable. Detainees are entitled to a full eight hours sleep and can't be woken up for interrogations. They enjoy three meals and five prayers per day, without interruption. They are entitled to a minimum of two hours of outdoor recreation per day. Interrogations are limited to four hours, usually running two - and (of course) are interrupted for prayers. One interrogator actually bakes cookies for detainees, while another serves them Subway or McDonald's sandwiches. Both are available on base. (Filet o' Fish is an al Qaeda favorite.) " (source)

Yet the word on the street has it in people's minds that it is as harsh and unbearable as the Nazi camps. Why do we accept this guilt? Is there something about us that deserves punishment? Are our lives and culture not worth preserving?

The interrogation techniques that the CIA uses should not come near to bringing up mental images of electric shock torture or beatings:

The techniques sought by the CIA are: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called “the attention grab” where a suspect’s shirt is forcefully seized; the “attention slap” or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the “belly slap”; and sound and light manipulation. (source)

Compare this to the experience of Amnon Sharon, a retired IDF major, who was a prisoner of war in Syria:

...during his eight months in prison, he underwent extreme physical and mental torture. He describes his five months in solitary confinement, first in a detention center and later in Al-Mazeh prison near Damascus. He describes the unbearable torture, which included random beatings in his tiny cell and daily interrogations in which he would simply pass out from the pain.

"Each time the door opened, my body shook in fear, for I did not know in what condition I would return to my cell," writes Sharon, as he recalls being whipped on the soles of his feet because that is where many nerve endings are located, electric shocks and spinnings, where he was put in a tire and beaten from all angles by the prison guards.

"The beating continued, and I felt as if my body were dripping downwards. It boiled from the blows while the contact with the cold floor gave me chills," he describes in the book. "They cut me like a steak before it goes on the grill, and I felt my body ripping."

The Syrian interrogators also tried to break his spirit mentally, by telling him that Israel had been captured or that his mother, Esther, had died. (source)

Jimmy Carter claims because of the CIA techniques, “We’ve lost the support and trust and confidence and admiration that we’ve had for generations,” Carter said, adding the administration “has stonewalled so they can continue to perpetrate this illegal punishment.” (source) If we have, it's because we were willing to apologize for it, and seeing a weakness in our armour, our enemies attacked.

And now, because of the PC attitude that we are bad, and have to be constrained, lest someone think we are monsterous, we are having a bill in the Senate that, if it passes, will make it virtually impossible to do interrogation, for national security reasons and the fact that interrogators will be at too high a liability to do their job, and thus, the squeamish who have pushed us into reaching this place by acting in a self destructive mode, put us all at risk.

Why are we apologizing? Do we really want to lose?