"Fighting Words"

[elfs]

For those of you who have been paying attention, there is a huge brouhaha over whether or not the military abused a copy of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay. There are a few things about this incident that really bother me.

The first is the constant use of the word "holy" by the Bush Administration when describing the Koran. Nobody I know consistently uses the word "holy" to describe the Bible or the Torah, and would probably gag applying that adjective to the Baghavad Gita or the Kama Sutra. I don't mean to imply that "holy" is never applied to those books, but in every press conference this week over the incident members of the Bush Administration consistently referred to the Koran as "The Holy Koran" (tm).

The Bush Administration has painted itself as a friend of the fundamentalist mindset in this country, one that believes that there is no "holy" book other than the Bible, and to consistently call the Koran a "holy" book when, supposedly, no one in the Bush Administration really believes that shows just how weak-spined they are when it comes to living up to their own rhetoric.

On the other hand, over in the Middle East when the story came out, the Islamic world went nuts and killed people. I'm sorry, but in a civilized world you might call the desecration of a mass-produced religious text the act of a cad, you might call it distasteful, you might beleive the perpetrators are hell-bound barbarbians, but that is no reason for murder. Can you imagine any Western nation where the maltreatment of an object would cause mass violence that leads to pogramage and decimation? I can't believe that we are so afraid of those people and their medieval mindset that we are willing to backpeddle, kowtow, and perform obesiance to make them stop. They won't stop.

And now that Newsweek has retracted the story, it doesn't matter. They don't believe that the incident may never have happened. The rioters are incapable of suspending judgement. They want an excuse to go on rioting, killing, and making the rest of the world suffer, and they're going to hang onto this one for a while.

Here in the United States and in the rest of the modern world, we have something generally regarded as freedom of expression. This is true not just of speech, but print, and in our modern world, recordings of audio and video. The idea of supressing another's right to speak his mind is not merely abhorrent, it is immoral. The right to expression often includes the right to make that expression with whatever tools are available, so long as those tools are your property. It really is time to apply those moral standards to the rest of the world. Because if we don't fight for the ideals of the Enlightment, we are going to let the light go out.

Comments

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Can you imagine any Western nation where the maltreatment of an object would cause mass violence that leads to pogramage and decimation?

Burning the US flag and various reactions to it come to mind. (I condone neither the burning nor the reactions, ok? It seems to me that people have gotten rather over the top about the whole burning things-that-symbolize-things-they-care-about here, too.) Other items burned here which caused rather a hullabaloo have been draft cards and bras. Union organizers and laborers have always been in the line of trigger-happy fire, not for their actions but for the ideals they were trying to bring into our reality.

And in the current spate of inexcusable murder, could it be that the rage had less to do with the perceived treatment of the perceived "holy" object, and more to do with the perceived treatment of the people held in G.B. and other incarceration camps our tax monies are funding? It is not clear to me what the riots were about; and the US news media has not been a very reliable source for that sort of information about events I've seen personally. Did they get it right this time? Do we know?

That said, yeah, we'd better fight for the ideals of the enlightenment. Right here in our country, where its light is flickering and threatening to blink out by the votes of an alarming percentage of the population. I'll be with you on the barricades of liberty in this country. The rest of the world - I'll be happier when our energy (in the form of soldiers and money) is right back at home. I see no benefit to us, the people, to being the global cop with a nuclear baton.

[fallenpegasus]

And, of course, the unionists who physically threaten and who blackball picket crossers, the unionist who sabotage datacomms infrastructure whenever they strike,
the newspaper union members who would break windows and slash tires of the new internet and web folks in the early 90s when the papers started experamenting with this new "web thing" for being "scabs", and the Teamsters et al hiring big tough ex-con people who's job description is "promoting union solidarity", they are just "working for their ideals"?

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm against all of those activities.

Is there a question you wanted to ask me, or was the question mark at the end of your list of unacceptable (to both of us) activities just for decoration?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I think thet comparison (burning the Flag or bible) is weak precisely because it is considered immoral, and there are laws against assault, and those laws are assiduously enforced, here in the U.S. if someone does something like that. In Islamic states, we see government approval of these huge riots.

As it turns out, the riots may have been staged from the beginning and the whole Koran thing merely an excuse, if that.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

That the riots would be staged makes a lot of sense to me. I wonder what the message they are trying to send is, and whom it is intended for. Is it some form of interal power-mongering among pan-Islamic activists? Or is it a message from our own government to us, in the US, hoping to evoke exactly the kind of outrage that you displayed? Or were the riots spontaneous? A mob is a horrible beast (have you ever experienced a mob? it's quite a fascinating dynamic.)

As to laws against assault enforced in the US - NOW they are. At least as far as we know, and outside of jails (assault in a jail settigns seems to be fair game, and the incarcertated form the largest percentage of the population in any modern country - by far.) But I don't think they were enforced quite as emphatically when we were young, if the assaulted person had too much pigmentation, or not enough political clout (I'm thinking of lynchings in the South and of the various political machines, mostly but not only in the northern states).

We still have a lot of work to do right here at home before we go out and preach democractic values to the rest of the world - have you discussed the death penalty or our medical system with a European? "You mean that if you have no money - you die?" - It's quite enlightening. They think we're not quite civilized, yet.

See you on the barricades [wink].

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Elf, this is the same bunch of cretins that got upset many moons ago and tried to make it unconstitutional to apply a Bic to a bunch of mass-produced red, white, and blue nylon made by godless Commies in Red China, for pity's sake. Any light of idealism they ever had was snuffed long ago. We'll have to find our own elsewhere.

Besides, war is good for business. War means censorship and secrecy and a bazillion ways to make a fast buck when young men and women's lives are on the line.

As for standing up and applying our standards to the rest of the world... that's precisely what pisses them off so. What gives us the right to impose Pax Americana on the rest of the world? Nothing.

Of course, convincing the Empire to abandon the Middle East - with all that oil.... much less all the other power they've got...

[fallenpegasus]

It's not the "same bunch of cretins", because I'm not in one bunch of "cretins" (the ones opposed to flag burning), and I'm in the other bunch of "cretins" (I'm all for using any technique that works for prying OpInt and StratInt out of captured AQ et al warriors.)

If flushing paper down the john, or being interviewed by shorts-wearing women who have red paint on the inside of their legs (another neat trick used by the interviewers) will work, GREAT. Prisoners may have the right to not be physically tortured (which works poorly at best anyway), but NOBODY has the "right" to not be offended, no matter how severely.

The people who get murderous over symbolic offences are the true "cretins" here, and there are plenty of such cretins in Western society as well, and I am utterly sick of them.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Wasn't talking about you, was talking about the politicians.

On the other hand....

The Geneva Convention is actually one of enlightened self-interest. If you treat your prisoners well, word will get back to the other side, and it will actually make the other side more willing to surrender. If, however, you mistreat your prisoners, it makes them... quite bloodthirsty. As we have seen.

Besides. These people are fanatics. They'll either talk or they won't. If they decide they won't, Torquemeda himself couldn't make them. And trying to get them to talk is ultimately going to cost more GI's lives in suicide bombings.

As for not being offended: I as a free man have the right to not be witness to whatever offensiveness you care to commit. POW's by their nature can't run away. Furthermore, being offensive has consequences. Someone may come up and punch you in the mouth. If you offend someone badly enough, someone may blow himself up in your shopping mall.

I'm not saying we have to be uber-PC. If you've read me for long enough, you know my opinion of PC. *spit* I'm just saying lets not be egregiously offensive. You can call a man a low-down stuck-up half-witted scruffy-looking nerf-herder, but using the N-word is just a little beyond the pale. Same with POW's. If you want to convince them to talk, try convincing them you're not the devil incarnate first.

"Love your enemies, and drive'em nuts!"
    -- Brother Dave Gardener

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Yeah. What he said.

Personally I don't believe the Newsweek retraction either. They were just pressured into doing so, potentially by having their "source" refuse to confirm it in public. Why is this one unnamed "source" so much more believable than those released from detention who also claim it was done? Especially seeing as eveything else those detainees have claimed about their imprisonment has been confirmed.

I see this as a succesful psi-war effort to discredit Newsweek, distract attention, and make it harder for other independant news sources, such as Reuters. to get the real stories accepted, thus cementing administration media control by warning and example. I.E.: "Say what we want you to say or we'll 'do a Newsweek' on you."

The fact that this little exercise in internal media control resulted in deaths and destruction overseas is of course is irrelevant, as such things are only a means to an end.

It's also convenient that this little furore means they can avoid talking about US support for the regime in Uzbekistan, and the US administration's spineless response over the recent massacres by government troops there, primarily because that regime is one where the US administration sends captives to be tortured.

[fallenpegasus]

Funny how when the administration weighs the cost of doing something to another country and then decides against it, they are "spineless", and when they weigh the cost and then do something, they are "warmongering" and "unilateral".

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I've seen the Bible defaced as an art act, in a public place, and while there was grumbling and indignant editorials in the local paper the week following, there was no massive riot. That's the distinction I make. The man bought the book with his own money and he has the right to do with it as he pleases: here in the U.S., we respect that right even if we don't like what he does with it.

I suppose there's the possibility you could enrage someone so much they would murder, but there are sanctions against that here, and they are enforced. Murder, on the other hand, is encouraged by government officials in Islamic states.

There were no riots in Iraq, or Iran, or even Palestine over this news. That makes me think that the riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan were primed and waiting for an excuse, and this was it.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[(Anonymous)]

We have self-expression for now, you mean. And freedom of the press took a bit of a downward turn when Newsweek spinelessly retracted their story.
As it is, the Bushite Junta and their friends are managing the press very well. In order to have any sort of access to the government's operations, the press must get on its knees and accept spoon-fed pablum from the Administration, or whip themselves into a meaningless frenzy.
Enough of that, now on to the Islamic world. Their reaction was medieval, Elf, but not unexpected. A memo from General Myers stated that the riots in Afghanistan may be completely unrelated to the article (let's face it - how many people in Kandahar read Newsweek?). What is lurking under that spate of violence is the fact that we are in countries that distrust us and have little reason to like us.

[slutdiary.livejournal.com]

And here a list of earlier stories about Koran flushing.

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

It's not that I'm an insensitive bastard, really I have some cultural sensitivity.

But whenever I hear this story discussed, I have trouble not laughing. Maybe it's the imagery of someone trying to flush a book down a toilet. And the book not actually going down the pipes, but just hanging there in the bowl, swirling around in the water.

The way I see it, *anyone* who is going to get bent over someone else's actions, actions which don't directly hurt any other person or animal, but theoretically may hurt some metaphysical being's feelings (who won't show themselves to register a complaint), is a sad, sad person. That folks throw tantrums over what others do is pathetic. Each individual is responsible for his or her own actions, not the actions of others, and it's foolish to take offense at whatever tasteless things someone else might do. Such things only reflect badly on the person doing them, not on anyone else. If interrogators actually did such things, it just reflects on their stunning stupidity if they actually believed that seeing one's holy book desecrated was going to cause them to have a faith crisis. Come on...if anything, such behavior would justify the perceived evil and heighten their resolve as martyrs and protectors of their faith against the infidels.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Funny. I was just listening to the CBC's "As It Happens" interviewing one of the two authors of the infamous Newsweek article. According to him, the pressure to retract the article is utter nonsense.

He and his coauthor sent the article to the Pentagon for review prior to publishing it. The Pentagon okayed it.

The sentence about flushing the Koran was but one of a long list of prisoner abuses at G.B., including confirmed, documented stomping on and kicking of the Koran. And these incidences come from non-anonymous sources, frmo multiple people.

Lastly, the anonymous source of the "flushing" incident is a government official who both of these journalists have used in the past and who has proven reliable all of those prior times. Soooo... they had no reason to think he was lying, confused, or otherwise inaccurate.

Of course, none of this has been covered in the American press. Between that, and a Sentate committee issuing in-absentia judgements of guilt on UK MP George Galloway (contrary to centuries of legal tradition), I'm utterly horrified and frightened.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

If none of that had been covered in the American press, why did I hear about it from National Public Radio, which is not only American but is funded by government grants?

[(Anonymous)]

Elf, because NPR hasn't been completely suborned by the Bushite Junta yet.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

These days, it's barely funded by government grants.

Since I made that post, I've been hearing some more of the details I originally heard on, "As It Happens" on WNYC and WAMC. Both of those stations (the latter covering upstate NY) are ruggedly-independent-minded stations that create a lot of their own programming. So, that, at least, is hopeful.

OTOH, I haven't heard the same level of detail on any of the NPR news programs ("Morning Edition," "All Things Considered," etc.) I'm curious to know, Elf, which Public Radio program you heard it on, and to what level of detail? Was it a locally-produced one?

(Recall that NPR, which is a government agency, is distinct from PRI and American Public Media, which are independent organizations that produce a substantial amount of the programming one gets on one's public radio station. WAMC gets particularly cranky when ya call them "NPR". But those are details for another occasion. :wink:)

I guess my original point is that I find the "news" in the US to be noticably slanted in a direction I find quite frightening. Though, there are a few courageous local, independent broadcasters who still have the courage to Tell the Truth to Power.

(On a totally different note: Right now, I'm listening to an "As It Happens" report on EuroVision, the EuroPop contest, and it's 50th anniversary. My spouse, epinoid, recently discovered EuroVision (EuroPop is one of his guilty-pleasures :giggle:).)