jagreer37
August 26th, 2009, 1:41 am
President Obama has announced that he is starting a new “elite” interrogation unit. This unit will operate as part of the FBI, but will report directly to an interagency committee that will be chaired by the White House’s national security advisor. Recent reports have suggested that the Bush Administration’s assertion that their “enhanced interrogation techniques” prevented further attacks was false. I don’t know about that one way or the other. All I know is that there have been no other serious attacks on the United States since they started.
The CIA has been accused of torturing terrorism suspects and captured terrorists with extreme measures to gain intelligence. Water boarding, threatening their prisoners’ families, staging fake executions, and holding guns to the heads of some of these prisoners are some of the techniques the CIA is accused of using. I would like to point out that none of these techniques caused any sort of physical trauma or damage. They certainly caused some psychological trauma, the extent of which I have no idea. I don’t want to get into a debate about how just causing psychological trauma is better than the horrible things that are done to westerners captured by these extremists. They’ve beheaded, beaten, tortured, humiliated, and defiled the corpses of their prisoners. Hmmm…
But I digress; I actually wanted to talk about the stupid names we are giving everything in an effort to avoid offending a terrorist. How awful that would be. Do they really think this whole thing started with a “your mama” joke? Prisoners who may have useful information are no longer terror suspects, but high-value detainees. Does this mean we’re going to use more care when trying to get information out of them? When is Michael Palin going to show up and threaten to use the big comfy chair? “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
We can’t call it the War on Terror anymore; it’s the Overseas Contingency Operation. What does that even mean? Let’s break down the words. Overseas is fairly obvious, it’s anything not on our shores. A contingency is a possibility, something that may happen. Maybe. And operation in this context is a mission. So, the War on Terror is now the Mission That Might Possibly Happen Somewhere Else. That’s reassuring.
My other favorite is the new term for homicide-bombings (I refuse to call them suicide-bombings; if innocent people die it’s not a suicide.) They’re now man caused disasters according Janet Napolitano. That’s not at all sexist. There are plenty of female homicide bombers and what about the kids who get coerced into strapping a few pounds of c-4 to themselves? Do we need to come up with a cutesy term for them too?
There are so many things about this that irk me. First off, it’s another example of the condescending pandering the politically correct shock-troopers have been trying to force down our throats for years. God forbid we should call short people short, no they’re height disadvantaged and bald men are differentially hirsute. I know these sound extreme, but I have heard these phrases used on college campuses.
Secondly, we are the most powerful nation in the world. Despite the rest of the world’s feelings about us, we are still the one country where everyone wants to live. Except maybe the French. They’re pretty happy where they are, eating snails, not shaving their pits, and looking down their noses at us. At any rate, we have our problems, but we are still the best thing going. We need to be good to the few friends we have left and stop worrying about whether or not we’re going to offend some terrorists’ precious little feelings. It just makes us look ridiculous and weak.
Most of all, the thing that irks me about this is that using with these new terms diminishes the seriousness of what we are up against. There are a lot of very bad; very angry people out there and they hate us. They don’t hate us because we called them a bad name, they don’t hate us because of the Crusades hundreds of years ago, and they don’t hate us because we’re Christian. They hate us because we aren’t Muslim. They hate us because we live in a free society. Most of all they hate us because we flaunt our freedom, as we should. We’re the greatest nation on Earth and it’s good to be the king. The thing about being on top is that you have to keep an eye on everyone else. There is always someone who wants to knock you down a notch, is going to be jealous of the things you have, and who would rather bring you down to their level than put in a little work to earn the things you have. I love you America. Stop being stupid.
The CIA has been accused of torturing terrorism suspects and captured terrorists with extreme measures to gain intelligence. Water boarding, threatening their prisoners’ families, staging fake executions, and holding guns to the heads of some of these prisoners are some of the techniques the CIA is accused of using. I would like to point out that none of these techniques caused any sort of physical trauma or damage. They certainly caused some psychological trauma, the extent of which I have no idea. I don’t want to get into a debate about how just causing psychological trauma is better than the horrible things that are done to westerners captured by these extremists. They’ve beheaded, beaten, tortured, humiliated, and defiled the corpses of their prisoners. Hmmm…
But I digress; I actually wanted to talk about the stupid names we are giving everything in an effort to avoid offending a terrorist. How awful that would be. Do they really think this whole thing started with a “your mama” joke? Prisoners who may have useful information are no longer terror suspects, but high-value detainees. Does this mean we’re going to use more care when trying to get information out of them? When is Michael Palin going to show up and threaten to use the big comfy chair? “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
We can’t call it the War on Terror anymore; it’s the Overseas Contingency Operation. What does that even mean? Let’s break down the words. Overseas is fairly obvious, it’s anything not on our shores. A contingency is a possibility, something that may happen. Maybe. And operation in this context is a mission. So, the War on Terror is now the Mission That Might Possibly Happen Somewhere Else. That’s reassuring.
My other favorite is the new term for homicide-bombings (I refuse to call them suicide-bombings; if innocent people die it’s not a suicide.) They’re now man caused disasters according Janet Napolitano. That’s not at all sexist. There are plenty of female homicide bombers and what about the kids who get coerced into strapping a few pounds of c-4 to themselves? Do we need to come up with a cutesy term for them too?
There are so many things about this that irk me. First off, it’s another example of the condescending pandering the politically correct shock-troopers have been trying to force down our throats for years. God forbid we should call short people short, no they’re height disadvantaged and bald men are differentially hirsute. I know these sound extreme, but I have heard these phrases used on college campuses.
Secondly, we are the most powerful nation in the world. Despite the rest of the world’s feelings about us, we are still the one country where everyone wants to live. Except maybe the French. They’re pretty happy where they are, eating snails, not shaving their pits, and looking down their noses at us. At any rate, we have our problems, but we are still the best thing going. We need to be good to the few friends we have left and stop worrying about whether or not we’re going to offend some terrorists’ precious little feelings. It just makes us look ridiculous and weak.
Most of all, the thing that irks me about this is that using with these new terms diminishes the seriousness of what we are up against. There are a lot of very bad; very angry people out there and they hate us. They don’t hate us because we called them a bad name, they don’t hate us because of the Crusades hundreds of years ago, and they don’t hate us because we’re Christian. They hate us because we aren’t Muslim. They hate us because we live in a free society. Most of all they hate us because we flaunt our freedom, as we should. We’re the greatest nation on Earth and it’s good to be the king. The thing about being on top is that you have to keep an eye on everyone else. There is always someone who wants to knock you down a notch, is going to be jealous of the things you have, and who would rather bring you down to their level than put in a little work to earn the things you have. I love you America. Stop being stupid.