"Grog no like people that dehumanize".
Posted on 08/04/2006 10:25:31 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
To hate other humans or to feel no pain at their suffering, it is necessary to dehumanize them, to write them off as less than human. The Nazis are the classic example of this dehumanization. Germans were the obermensch, the master race. Jews, Slavs, Gypsies were the untermensch, the inferior peoples who barely had the right to exist.
The Puritans dehumanized Native Americans, white Americans dehumanized African Americans, Irish Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland dehumanized one another, as do Jews and Arabs in the Mideast, and Shiite and Sunni Muslims. In every case, one attributes to the "other" characteristics that prove that they are not fully human by the use of stereotypes -- "illegals," for example. The American soldiers who tortured, beat, raped and murdered Iraqis dismiss their victims as "rag heads." The rest of us are able to ignore the pain and the grief of ordinary Iraqis, as I learned from responses to my last column, by arguing that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attack or that Saddam Hussein killed far more than have died under our inept and unplanned "occupation."
The first argument is ignorant. Bush administration officials have admitted in whispers that no evidence has been found of a link between al-Qaida and Iraq. It is also immoral because it assumes that revenge is appropriate. The second argument reveals twisted immorality. Because Saddam was a mass murderer, Americans are not responsible for our failure to protect Iraqis when we have taken charge of their country. He was worse than we are, he killed through commission, we kill (for the most part) through omission. Our only sins were to make war on the basis of false arguments with little understanding of the people whose social system we destroyed and to establish an occupation of arrogant incompetence. Thus the ineffable Paul Wolfowitz, the intellectual architect of the Iraq war, could say, "I think that there are ethnic differences in Iraq, but they are exaggerated."
Right! The Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites will be too busy celebrating our liberation to kill one another. It is unlikely that Wolfowitz assumes any responsibility for what went wrong.
So you see, the e-mail that makes this argument implies, why should we feel any guilt because Saddam was much worse than we are? Baldly stated, that argument is nonsense and immoral nonsense at that. Yet many Americans are still ready to use it to wash their hands of the pain and suffering, the fear and the horror of innocent Iraqis we have betrayed.
Joel Preston Smith, one of my e-mail commentators, writes he was in Iraq before the war and after it began. "If I hadn't been treated so well, maybe I wouldn't feel so connected to the families and friends who sheltered me, fed me, helped me do my work. But I see the vast majority of Iraqis as incredibly kind, thoughtful people. And it is a knife in my heart, every day, to see them suffer." Many Americans do feel a similar knife, but many others dispense themselves from any feelings of grief or responsibility.
Moreover, when Americans finally "cut and run" -- as Ronald Reagan did in Lebanon -- there is no reason to think that Baathist leaders of the insurgency (from the safe haven of Syria) will not re-install Saddam or someone as bad as he was.
The man who was to lead the military police contingent into Iraq was promised 20 battalions of MPs. At the last minute, to prove Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's point that not many troops would be needed to dispose of Saddam, his contingent was cut to three battalions. If he had his full complement, he might have been able to prevent the looting that provided weapons for the insurgency. Rumsfeld dismissed the looting as something that was inevitable and not important. "Stuff happens."
Are all Americans responsible for the administration's ignorance and arrogance in Iraq? Surely not. Yet those who still defend the war with clichés and phony arguments despite all the published evidence to the contrary are whistling in the dark as they pass the graveyard.
mailto:agreel@aol.com
white trash, crackers, rednecks, trailer trash, lily white.
Which is the essence of islam - those who are not muslim are non-islamic scum - worth of only rape, murdered and slavery.
An absolute bald faced lie.
I remember seeing this grinning fool Greely on the Katie Couric show a year or two ago ... and this fellow calls himself a Roman Catholic priest??
I guess Greeley's judgementalism is a virtue?Greeley is a Pharisee.
"or that Saddam Hussein killed far more than have died under our inept and unplanned "occupation."
The Left keeps insisting that Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein. Fat Ted Kennedy said that Abu Ghraib had just reopened under new management. How many hands have we chopped off? How many women have been taken to rape rooms? How many wives have been disemboweled in front of prisoners at Abu Ghraib?
The left is sick.
It's a little hard to dehumanize some people any more than than they do to themselves.
Sawing heads off innocent unarmed people, killing women over honor just because they went out in public without a man, hiding and firing rockets from civilian areas to draw return fire and have the civilians killed, using ambulances to transport terrorists and weapons. I could go on but everybody gets the point.
Don't forget Sunni dogs and Shiite pigs, or is it the other way around?
Allow me to translate:
"Greely cannot find any assertions by Bush administration officials that no evidence has been found of a link between al-Qaida and Iraq, so he'll simply make it up."
Hillary Clinton - October 2002
Oh, right ... I get it.
Kinda like the way the Left says babies aren't babies, merely non-viable cell masses.
They make it easy to hate the President by calling him Hitler.
The MSM does it when they focus on the 'civilian' deaths in Lebanon, yet pay scant attention to the Jewish civilians slaughtered in their beds by the jihadis all these past years.
And a Philistine as well.
Father you stupid dupe. We have spent our blood and treasure to bring freedom, democracy and prosperity to Iraq. We have built schools, roads and hospitals. We have done all we can to free those people from a dictator who was dangerous to them and to us...to you. So don't get all holy with me. I don't want to hear the lectures that you should be giving to the murdering terrorists who are killing innocent civilians in droves. I stand proudly by the president of the US and I say we should fight the terrorist to our last breath. Stiffen your spine. It's going to be ugly. Now go back to writing your silly novels.
Signed,
A fellow Catholic. ailto:agreel@aol.com
Horsecrap.
Joel Preston Smith, one of my e-mail commentators, writes he was in Iraq before the war and after it began. "If I hadn't been treated so well, maybe I wouldn't feel so connected to the families and friends who sheltered me, fed me, helped me do my work. But I see the vast majority of Iraqis as incredibly kind, thoughtful people. And it is a knife in my heart, every day, to see them suffer." Many Americans do feel a similar knife, but many others dispense themselves from any feelings of grief or responsibility.
What kind of work was that? Human shield? The contractors didn't go in until after the war (in which Saddam was toppled). Doesn't sound like he was with the army either. Even a journalist would have a hotel room. So what kind of sympathizer was this and why should we take his word without hearing who his side is?
A google search of his name and Iraq identifies him as a "Peacemaking delegate" (of the “Iraq Peace Team” www.iraqpeaceteam.org) and a photojournalist. He webpublished a series of photos titled ""Living With the Enemy" - January 14-24, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq."
Iraq Peace Team is not affiliated with Human Shield projects. Though we hope to remain in Iraq in the event of an attack, we don't consider ourselves “human shields." IPT exists to stand in solidarity with the peoples of Iraq. Voices in the Wilderness refuses to incorporate military language or ideas to describe the peace witness of IPT members.
Oh darn it. I don't know how that signature agreel@aol.com got left in my post 16. It was my post. Sorry about that.
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