Marshall Fouche was credited (perhaps incorrectly) with saying “there are no atheists in foxholes” Others credit Ernie Pyle, and still others Bill Casey.
As Bill Cosby once said, “When the ground starts shaking, you’re going to look up. “
So it is we find Radley Balko [1]recanting his former position which was in support of torturing suspected terrorists. His new position is highly moralizing and high minded. It’s also full of crap.
I should have opposed torture for the same reason I oppose just about every other surrender of power to the government that naive people (in this case, like me) tend to think looks good on paper: Because the government won’t use it competently, because the government will abuse it, and because the government will find new, inappropriate contexts in which to use it.
But, as Balko himself demonstrates over time, it’s a lot easier to maintain one’s high-minded principles, when one isn’t under attack. Not to sound overdramatic, but that one point changes the entire dynamic. it’s easy to be high minded, when those bullets aren’t flying; Peacetime is not an inducement to clarity of thought. There is nothing like a few bullets flying around, to focus one’s attention on what really matters. The trouble is, by that time, the supposedly high minded have attempted to place restrictions on reality.
Balko’s dual reaction is as good a proof of this as one may find, I think.
I understand and agree with the concept of limiting government. However; What Balko’s recanting doesn’t account for, aside from the issue of “principle” while under attack, is that defense is one of the very few legitimate purposes of government. (And in the case of the United States, is so recognized by the Constitution )
Finally, we are still left with the issue of what constitutes “torture”. As an example; what those fifteen sailors from Britain are undergoing, would, a few months ago, have been considered “torture” by our press. But since at this point, it is the Iranians dishing it out, the word “torture” has not much as darkened a page in our press. (Telling, that)
Joyner [2] pipes up, and says “This is what I’ve been saying all along”… and in fairness, he HAS been. but in all frankness, and with all respect to James and Radley, given the lines of thought expressed above I find it very difficult indeed to get wrapped up in this moralizing.
Survival is the highest priority, my friends. Everything else is secondary to that ideal.
Everything.
Absolutely everything.
If we give that up, what good is any of the rest of it? What possibility do any of those “high ideals” have to survive in the world? if we are unwilling to defend ourselves, by whatever means, then what it comes down to is we don’t deserve to survive. Which is handy, since in that case, we won’t.