How Far?

How far will the U.S. government try to push their abilities to ignore human rights? From unchecked torture to the desecration of the constitution, The government of our country at this time does not seem to realize or quite frankly does not seem to care what its citizens say as they continue to press on for more lee way to spy on and infiltrate your personal life. The government recently gave itself the ability to police the internet. Add this to the fact that our leaders at this time are placing more regulations and red tape that may or may not be allowed in the constitution and do not seem to have shown any signs of slowing down. What can be done? Do the people need to hold the people in power more responsible? only time will tell.

Is Torture Necessary?

When i read "Mark Danner's article "After September 11: Our State of Exception", i felt a strong sense of anger towards the government/CIA/all involved in torturing an innocent man. I had strong feelings of anger at the fact that they were able to get away with it because of how "high up and spread" the blame was placed. But i began to look at this from multiple angles. Torture is nothing new. It happened in many civilizations throughout history. The question that then came to my mind is, "Would this incident of torturing an innocent man have been scrutinized the same had the man been guilty of the crimes accused?" People are quick to jump and say that torture is wrong, that it goes against humanity, and that it shouldent be practiced, and i agree with this for the most part, but what i notice in myself is that if this man had not been innocent, would i have had the same feelings about the CIA/government? Would i have felt a deep sense of sorrow for the man? I dont think i can say i would. I propose the same questions to the class: "If the man was not innocent, would you have the same feelings about this article? Would you still believe that torture is not justified to be used against a person involved in plotting terrorism? To those who believe torture goes against all that is humanity, how do you propose we treat those found guilty of either plotting terrorism or withholding information that could save the lives of millions?

Big Brother Is Watching You

As I read Danner’s article, “After September 11: Our State of Exception,” I found that many excerpts created an image in my mind of America depicted like George Orwell’s Big Brother character in his famous novel, 1984. I know, I know, as an English major, I’m destined to make a literary connection, but bear with me; I can make this relevant.

I felt most struck by this notion as I read the excerpts from Abu Zubaydah. His descriptions of torture corresponded with the depictions presented in Orwell’s book. For example, Zubaydah’s description—“I woke up naked, strapped to a bed, in a very white room. The room measured 4m x 4m. The room had three solid walls, with the fourth wall consisting of metal bars separating it from a larger room”—sounds strikingly similar to the description provided by Orwell—“He did not know where he was. Presumably he was in the Ministry of Love, but there was no way of making certain. He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.” And again, Zubaydah’s account reads: “I was given no solid food during the first two or three weeks,” much like Orwell’s character, who felt, “hungry, with a gnawing, unwholesome kind of hunger. It might be twenty-four hours since he had eaten, it might be thirty-six.” And these similarities only skim the surface. I will refrain from using too much textual evidence from 1984, since I wouldn’t want to ruin the book for anybody that has not read it, but the similarities are obvious and striking.

The reason why I even mention this comparison stems from my initial fears after reading Orwell’s 1984. Any reader that has ever once questioned the intentions of the government could see that the depiction of Big Brother may not be far off from the American government. And, honestly, after reading some of the absurd facts of the article, I came to realize that America truly is a Big Brother to other countries, and needless to say, Big Brother is watching.

When I hear that, “every day the President and other senior officials received the ‘threat matrix,’ a document that could be dozens of pages long listing ‘every threat directed at the United States’ that had been sucked up during the last twenty-four hours by the vast electronic and human vacuum cleaner of information that was US intelligence,” I find it hard not to think that the American government is just as paranoid as the skeptical Big Brother, a metaphorical being who keeps an eye on every citizens in society. Accordingly, these concepts of, “Assume the worst,” and “Act preemptively, aggressively,” and “When in doubt, act,” also draw the same comparison. The government tries so hard to prevent terrorism that they must, at some point, target the wrong person, someone who doesn’t have the information that the government thinks they do, and that person will suffer for something that they didn’t do.

I want to conclude by saying that 1984 always seemed like a conspiracy theory to me. I never thought that the government would be so overbearing, unnecessarily poking into private business in order to protect itself. However, I’m seeing now that it doesn’t matter. If there is suspicion, any suspicion at all, they find it okay to act. And if that’s the case, how far will this go?

Ignorance: Bliss or Problem?

       While reading the selections written by Hayan Charara for this week, it was safe to say I was made quite uncomfortable by the displays of ignorance made in regards to his student Mohammed. It seemed so insensitive that agents of the government would profile someone based on their appearance. Although I’m not so naïve to think that this type of situation had never occurred before, or to anyone else, it is still unsettling to think that someone could be accused of something because they look a certain way. What makes the interchange even worse is that Mohammed was doing something innocuous when he was targeted for questioning. Why wouldn’t it be clear from Mohammed’s notes that he was working on a class assignment? It leads me to believe that the men jumped to conclusions about what Mohammed’s intentions were. That seems incredibly ignorant.
Ignorance, in that situation, was obviously a problem. However, I was thinking about my own reactions to 9/11, and I realized something. I was also incredibly ignorant at the time. I didn’t know what a Muslim was or where any Arab countries were. At the time, I probably couldn’t have even pointed out New York on a map, even though I knew vaguely that it was East of Cleveland. But this ignorance, which I exhibited because I was eight years old at the time, meant that I would have no reason to unjustly target Arab-Americans or Americans who practice Islam. My ignorance, in other words, prevented me from making unfair assumptions about people who may or may not be involved with terrible people. I did not make the mistakes made in the story.
So, my question to the class is this:  can ignorance be a good thing, as in the example I provided, or am I misleading myself to think that ignorance was the cause for my tolerance instead of other factors. Let me know what you think.

why did obama win the Nobel Peace Prize

he was praised for his reduction of tension in the middle east but as of right now things in the middle east are as bad as ever. president obama has alienated the people we have went there to help and since the reception of this award the president increased his military action in the middle east in aiding the the revolts in lybia and egypt. many of the things he won this award for have not been accompanied by matching actions.  the people who supported him did so because middle eastern rulers "know he is somebody different from past leaders who supported Israel economically and militarily." at the time he won he had barely done anything to deserve this sort of praise and his track record shows that he is not shy of military conflict even though he continues to let the military become stagnant because of his lack of winning intensity in military conflict. taking military action without a clear goal and plan is foolish and deteriorating relationships between our only middle eastern ally is equally as foolish

Peace Through Human Nature

In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, President Obama brought up many interesting and good points about the history of violent wars and human kind's effort to bring justice to all nations. This is a noble and fulfilling goal that we all should strive for. He rightly quoted MLK in his Nobel speech when King stated that violence never brings lasting peace, just complicated social problems. Obama made it a point to bring out the strength of mankind in fighting for justice, but also of the perpetual violence that humanity brings to the world stage. He made it clear that evil will always exist and someone will have to use force to stop it. Obama does not see a way out of it. Man will always be violent.

However, one line in his speech rather interested me. This is the part of the speech where he was talking about the efforts of humanity to maintain peace and justice. Obama quoted John Kennedy saying that we need to "focus on a practical, more attainable peace based not on a sudden revolution in human nature, but on a gradual evolution in human institutions." It seems to me that the opposite of this statement would be true. Every time we have problems we look to human institutions to solve our problems. Because institutions are run by humans they are susceptible to corruption no matter what. We are not perfect. Rather a change in the philosophies and ideologies that our human nature's carry would have a much more profound effect on the problems we are facing. I also believe that this perspective is not a impractical and unattainable goal for peace. It will take time, but so will any other solution we come up with. No, it will not solve our problems overnight, but it will be a much better long term solution to the problem of injustice and violence. Institutions are not infallible and will only seek to solve the problems using human means and will inevitably lead us to other problems. However, by no means am I not advocating against human institutions as a whole. There are many organizations that do an incredible amount of good work for justice and peace, but I am saying that it would be better to start working on the nature of our actions and the nature of humanity so that they can have a much more positive impact on our human institutions. This would be a better direction for our president to go.

...Because We Can't Just Torture Anyone

After reading the two essays on torturing terrorists, I wanted to take a step back from the moral and ethical issues—if only momentarily—in order first to outline the basic definitions of a terrorist. I understand all the red tape around torture, and I find it all very fascinating, but before we can decide whether torture should be considered ethical or legal, we should consider who receives the torture.

Both essays discuss acts of torture assigned to terrorists. So, this idea—paired with a brief discussion in class—got me wondering about the ways in which we define a terrorist.

According to Google’s dictionary a terrorist is, “a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims.” In order to diversify my post, I want to include another dictionary’s definition; this description comes from Dictionary.com: “a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.”

Perhaps a further definition would aid in finding our so-called terrorists. In order to understand terrorists, one must understand terrorism, which is defined by Google as, “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.”

So, in a more fluent way, we can deduce that a terrorist is “a person who uses violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.” I don’t mean to get very finicky with wording and definition, especially because society’s definition speaks a lot louder than the definition of any dictionary. However, torture is an extremely serious topic, and if we ever want to apply it to anybody, we should know exactly to whom it will be applied.

Interestingly, I think that the definition says it all; a terrorist is somebody who uses violence and intimidation, not somebody who will use violence and intimidation. I call this point into attention because I don’t think we can label somebody as a terrorist until they actually commit an act of terrorism. With that being said, we should only, according to Dershowitz as cited in Dr. Lauritzen’s essay, torture a terrorist who is “guilty,” meaning, as far as I take it, that they have already committed the act of terror. However, in the same breath, Dershowitz also comments, according to Dr. Lauritzen, that torture “should not be a means of exacting vengeance.”

My question is as follows: if we should only torture terrorists who are guilty—which means, according to definition, they have already used violence and intimidation, not that they are planning to use it—how is that not seen as an act of vengeance? Would that not mean that we are punishing the guilty? Or am I confusing Dershowitz definition of a guilty terrorist?

And if that’s the case, can we prevent terrorism if a terrorist can only be defined as somebody who has already committed an act of terror?

And further, these questions only apply if we use the dictionary definition of terrorism. Do you think that society defines terrorism in a different way? If so, how do the two definitions differ?