Uncommon Commentary #54: Is Rule by Democrats "Torture" Enough?

I have already written briefly, in Uncommon Commentary#18 (which posting, however, resulted from a random philosophical thought rather than from the partisan pseudo-crusade against "enhanced interrogation techniques"), on the subject of "torture" of those whose criminality is undeniable, and there have been various articles covering aspects of this topic, but I haven't seen any that treat them all systematically, and so perhaps it falls to me to fill the void. Here, then, are six points that need to be understood by everyone:

1) Torture is defined as the intentional infliction of severe pain. Would any rational, unbiased person assert that "waterboarding," for instance, comes under this category? (It does exceed what would be permitted in the questioning of common criminals by local police, but someone such as Abu Zubaydah is no common criminal, and his case is not one for local police. The term "enhanced interrogation techniques," however euphemistic it may sound, therefore seems justified.)

2) The terrorists, with a very few exceptions, are not US citizens, and thus not entitled to the privileges of US citizenship.

3) The employment of "enhanced interrogation techniques," or e.i.t.'s, has yielded such valuable information that intelligence professionals (even those who are Democrats) credit it with the prevention of "a second 9/11."

4) The real issue in the bogus furor over alleged torture is not whether waterboarding and the like ought to be used now (which they are not), but whether legal advisers who gave their expert opinions that such methods were permissible, and the government officials who took that advice, ought to be retroactively (and thus unconstitutionally) prosecuted (and persecuted) for having done so.

5) It's been established beyond question that the Congressional Democrats who scream the loudest about "torture" were briefed, on many occasions, on the procedures being employed against captured terrorists, and that not only did none object to those procedures, but the only objections came from those who wanted to know why the CIA wasn't doing more to extract information from the detainees.

6) For this point, see my hypothetical reasoning in Uncommon Commentary #18, and (since it's nice to have my opinion corroborated by someone whom I respect) this column. (It's no wonder that I like Sowell so well.)

I'm not an apologist for the USA; I think that Uncle Sam has does many things to be ashamed of. Alleged torture of prisoners is not among them; the fact that we permit so pathetic a spectacle as the Left's disingenuous campaign versus "torture" to go on, under the auspices of "democracy," is.

Uncommon Commentary #53: The Hypocritic Oath

You who have not already heard of this may not believe it, but physician Philip Nitschke is going to host a "suicide workshop" for the elderly. You can access the unpleasant details here. Important to note about that article is the reference to Eluana Englaro, who did not commit suicide, but was instead put to death by starvation; for the edification of the young people in my audience, this was considered murder not very long ago in the history of the West. The fact that she is mentioned in the debate over the "right to die" demonstrates the ease with which the acceptance of assisted suicide leads to that of what's called euthanasia. (Perhaps the issue is not a slippery slope but a precipice.)

Nitschke, like Jack Kevorkian, has been nicknamed "Dr. Death"; the many willing inducers of abortion could also legitimately claim such a title. One wonders whether these healers who hail from Hell are even aware that part of the original Hippocratic oath reads as follows:

I will give no deadly drug to any, though it be asked of me, nor will I counsel such, and especially I will not aid a woman to procure abortion.

A decision concerning the fate of such an unfortunate as Englaro or Terry Schiavo is not an easy one for any conscientious person, but, as the above quote shows, that decision is not to be made by a physician, whose duty is not to take life but to preserve it. Hippocrates formulated his oath in the context of ancient Greek civilization, which, superior to that of the contemporary Old Testament in most respects, definitely lagged in moral standards; hence the necessity of the oath for improving the ethics of medical doctors. As our culture relapses into paganism, we again must hear the proverb "Physician, heal thyself!"

Uncommon Commentary #52

I tend to be a hawk on military matters, but what sense does it make to have a "surge" in Afghanistan, where (unlike the circumstance in Iraq) no commander has requested additional forces? And how does Obama expect to bolster our presence there, maintain that in Iraq, be ready for other contingencies, and defend our own country, while making deep cuts in the defense budget? Most importantly, there's just one policy worse than isolationism, and that's incompetent interventionism; can this country win a war with Barack Obama as commander-in-chief?

Uncommon Commentary #51: The Specter of Left-Wing Dominance

There are interesting parallels between the mid-term switch of Arlen Specter and that of James Jeffords eight years ago. Both men, of course, threw over the Republicans for the Democrats; both justified their defecation—I mean, defection—by saying that the GOP had moved too far to the "right" (although, in the more-recent case, the real reason was the likely success of a challenge by Pat Trueman for the Republican nomination; Specter's statement that "I have nothing to say to the GOP primary voters. They have said it to me" amounts to an admission of this); and both defecations were costly to the Republican Party, for the one by Specter gave the opposition control of the US Senate (though for under two years; in 2002, Republicans routed Democrats in elections for both houses of the Congress, putting the lie to Jeffords' "the GOP is too conservative" propaganda), and that by Specter has, in tandem with the "election" of Pseudo-Senator Al Franken(stein), given the ruling party the 60 votes that it needs to close legislative debate on any subject, thus neutralizing the prospect of a Republican filibuster. (This is the only reason why the loss of Specter, who was always one of the worst of their number, can be considered a blow to Republicans.) It's also interesting, and amusing, to contrast the welcome that Specter is now being given with the vilification of him by his future Democratic Party inmates at Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings two decades ago.

Specter's change of allegiance could, perversely, turn out to be the closest thing to a blessing for the minority party that can happen under our political system, precisely because leftists will now have their coveted filibuster-proof majority; not because they'll govern well, but because they'll do so badly. Allow me to explain. Even when leftists win they lose, because then they have to rule, and they can't. The fact of their holding power practically without opposition will mean that there will be no curbs on their desire to remake the USA into a socialist paradise, with predictably catastrophic consequences. A healthy US economy will, as is already obvious, be one of the casualties of this megalomaniacal experiment, and since the voters blame (fairly or not) the party in power for their wallet woes, the Democrats will subsequently be ejected from office (assuming that free elections can still take place, which really is not a foregone conclusion). One would hope that, in the meantime, they will not have had quite enough opportunity to ruin this country in every conceivable way; if they do, the rest of us will have to be stoic, bearing in mind that many other peoples have been living under odious regimes for decades.

Perhaps just one thing remains to be said about Specter: Although a politician obviously should not be forbidden to ever alter his affiliation, he ought to at least wait to do so until his term of office has expired. Specter was, after all, elected as a Republican, not as a Democrat, and so to jump parties now is unethical. He ought to feel at home in the Democratic Party.

Uncommon Commentary #50: There's Nothing Engaging About Obama

In the early 600's AD (as I have already referenced in I Slam Islam?), the Byzantine Empire inflicted a decisive military defeat upon the Sassanid Empire of Persia; because the Byzantines were Christian (and thus, like Jews, qualified as a "People of the Book," whom Mohammed instructed his followers to respect) and the Sassanids Zoroastrian, Islamic historians regard this as a triumph of Truth over falsehood. What this reveals is the inaptitude of Obama's remarks in Turkey (see Uncommon Commentary #47), which indicated that he believes that the way to "engage" the Islamic world is to have Moslems think that our country is wholly without religious ideology, and thus, according to his logic, no threat to them. A culture such as ours, which minimizes the importance of religion, has little hope of "engaging" one that still values religion above all else.

Miscellaneous Musing #13

Don't be too concerned about growing older. The only ones of us who don't age are those who are dead.

Uncommon Commentary #49: Perhaps "ND" Stands for "No Discernment"

The scandal is now several weeks old, but the administration of the University of Notre Dame still refuses to rescind its invitation to Obama to be this year's commencement speaker. University President Fr. Jenkins defends his bewildering decision by saying that having the messianic claimant on campus will be an opportunity to "engage in dialogue" with him, but Obama is coming not to engage in dialogue but to present a monologue; that's what a commencement address is. And guess which point of view he's going to present in this monologue: that of God, or his own?

Of course, I don't actually know what Obama is going to say at Notre Dame; it would be nice to be able to believe that his address will have nothing to do with the critical moral issues on which the Roman Catholic Church has consistently taken the right, and Obama just as consistently the wrong, positions. Even if he were to avoid controversy, though, there would remain the shameful fact that this great Christian university is bestowing accolades upon the most un-Christian President in US history, both by the intention to present him with an honourary degree and by the mere fact of having selected him to be the speaker.

I can think of only one possible reason for Father Jenkins' otherwise inexplicable decision: perhaps he's under the impression that our chief executive spells his name "Burrach O'Bamagh," and is thus an Irishman.