War on Terror, Patriot Act, War in Iraq

War on Terror, Patriot Act, War in Iraq

I've added to what I wrote yesterday so some of today's post may be familiar. Most of what is expressed here is, obviously, just my opinion. It is based on my own personal interpretation of the news reports I've seen and books that I've read on the subject. I hesitate to post anything about these topics because my opinions are pretty strong - and they're also pretty mixed up. I'm finding that in order to say what I really want to say, I must accept that what I write is not always going to come out as a nice metaphorical story about wasps and hornets. I have decided to accept that. I hope that all of you can too.


The War on Terror

Please bear with me long enough to read a few quotes from others before I begin my post:

"Fighting terrorism is like being a goalkeeper. You can make a hundred brilliant saves but the only shot that people remember is the one that gets past you."
--Paul Wilkinson, British scholar

"How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared." --Salman Rushdie, "In Fear"

"The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer."
-- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor, 161-180 AD

I feel strongly that governments should work to prevent terrorist acts before they occur. Government intelligence agencies working hand in hand with the military and the police should do all that they can to ensure that suspected terrorists are investigated, and that known terrorists are brought to justice. By "brought to justice" I mean that known terrorists should be arrested and tried if possible, or killed if necessary, before they are allowed to take more innocent lives. I would hope that we would treat suspected terrorists the way that we would treat suspects in any crime in the United States. Innocent until proven guilty should be the standard. In my opinion, it is human life that is sacred, not just the human lives of our fellow countrymen. Our government should treat the life of the citizens of the world with just as much respect as it affords to our own.

My heart does not bleed for anyone who would take an innocent human life in order to make a political statement. There are many grey lines in any fight against terrorism because the world is cloudy and connections are more often blurred and unclear than not. The problem when we start saying that it's ok to kill in extreme circumstances in order to protect human life is that a doorway has then been opened for the government machine to barge through without tact or caution; and unfortunately that machine often does not mind its manners. Our government, when it makes decisions that lead to the loss of innocent human life, is making a political statement of its own.

My fear is that the option to kill, if considered acceptable, will be used when it is the easier option, but not necessarily when it is the right option, or as the absolute last resort. I do not want to hinder the right of my government to protect me from somebody who truly would kill me randomly just because I'm an American. At the same time I do not support the right of my government to take another human life without just cause. I also think that every human life is just as precious as my own. Taking an innocent life because somebody, somewhere, in some office thought that that person may have been a terrorist, is inhumane and unjust. It should not be acceptable for innocent foreigners to die in our fight against terrorism.

The situation after 9-11 with suspected terrorists who had been rounded up by the U.S. military and other organizations, languishing in prisons around the globe with no charges against them and without public release of their names was a violation of basic human rights. If any other country were ever to try to do the same kind of thing in the United States to U.S. citizens - there would be an uproar and retaliation, and rightly so. No amount of added security or supposed intelligence value makes it acceptable to imprison hundreds of innocent people for years in order to find out who the bad ones are. If there is no other way - then it would be better to discover each terrorist one by one as they make themselves known through their actions. It is not right to violate basic human rights in order to protect ourselves.

The whole way in which we've dealt with suspected terrorist detainees as if they were not prisoners of war is, in my opinion, abominable. The laws regarding the treatment of prisoners of war were instituted in order to ensure that enemies deal with each other in a humane way. Is it ok for us to treat not only known terrorists, but also suspected terrorists in a manner that is inhumane in order to get information? You may say that the terrorists are not going to treat us humanely when they attack, and therefore extreme measures must be taken. I would argue that we lower ourselves to the terrorists' level when we do inhumane things to anyone, and we help to justify their actions in their minds as well.

I think that there needs to be a self imposed limit to what we can do to the enemy in order to gather intelligence. Maybe there should be a slightly different standard for what is acceptable treatment, depending on whether suspected or known terrorists are being interrogated; but I feel that observing and honoring basic human rights should be the enforced standard in every case. When innocent people end up beaten up, or are forced to pile themselves up nude in humiliating poses for a U.S. service member's camera, or are discovered dead without cause, basic human rights have been violated, and I think that a case can be made that war crimes have been committed.

The Patriot Act

" They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. " -- Benjamin Franklin, "Historical Review of Pennsylvania"

It scares me that recent polls seem to indicate that the American people are willing to give up some of their sacred freedoms in order to gain some security. The government should be allowed to monitor and surveil criminals and suspected terrorists; but they should not be able to track all of us and all of our activities just because that makes it easier to determine who the criminals and suspected terrorists are. Why should every last one of us be treated as if we were a suspect?

We are all responsible, to some degree, for the actions of our government, our military and those of the corporations that our government employs to do much of our dirty work for us abroad. In my mind ignorance of the facts is not an excuse. The United States of America is leading the war on terror throughout the world and if you are a citizen of the United States then you have a vested interest in finding out what is going on and whether or not you support what we're doing and how we're doing it. If you don't agree with what we're doing and how - then do something about it! If you don't, who will?


The War in Iraq

I would like to share one more quote with all of you. Many of you may know it, others may not. I will share who the quote is from at the end of this post.

" Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.'"

The war in Iraq is a war we chose to fight; but it is not a war that had to be fought. It has never been simply about winning the freedom of the Iraqi people, and it has never been simply about fighting terrorism or dealing with an immediate threat to our security. We went in saying that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was an immediate threat. Whatever Iraq is now, it is because we created it; not only did we ask for it, we demanded it.

The U.S. opened a Pandora's Box when we chose to fight a preemptive war. Now any nation that wants to fight a war at any time with another country need only say that it fears that the other country is a threat. That justification, (and the prerequisite possession of WMD), gives many other nations in the world all the justification that they would need to invade the United States (if they thought that they could do so successfully).

The next time that we have real, actionable intelligence about an actual threat to our security, we will have a difficult time backing up our claims with that intelligence because of the way that we went about trying to convince the U.N. to go to war in Iraq with what turned out to be faulty intelligence. We wasted an ace that we held in our hand in that round.

The war in Iraq did not become a part of the war on terrorism until after we had invaded and lured the terrorists in. Before that the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism should have been considered two separate things. Did we plan to lure the terrorists into Iraq so that we wouldn't have to fight them at home? How's that for helping the Iraqi people? More innocent Iraqis will die than needed to in Iraq because we brought the War on Terror to their doorstep.

A war that was just about freeing the Iraqis could have been better fought at a different time, without making up false justifications to go in. If the only way that our government could get the American public to support sending our military into Iraq was to allow it to believe that Saddam played a part in what happened on 9-11 and that his WMD stockpile posed an immediate threat to our society, then the war in Iraq should have never happened in the first place because neither of those justifications was true.

Despite what you may think of me or my position after reading all of this, I want all of you to understand that I really do hope for a decent outcome in Iraq - and freedom for all of the Iraqi people. I support our troops who are just following the orders of their elected government. We need to do all that we can to help the Iraqis secure their freedom, to help make Iraq a stable place, and to keep our soldiers who are there safe. Now that we're in Iraq - we can't leave it, and there are some things that we just can't avoid now due to the choices that we've already made.

Here's to a free, secure, democratic, self-governed Iraq. I'd love to see that reality someday. I hate that we've gone about achieving that goal in this way. I don't believe that the ends justify the means - but since we can't change the means, let's at least pray for a decent end.

Here is that quote again:

" Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.'" --Abraham Lincoln

Guantanamo In The Eyes of the World

Guantanamo In The Eyes of the World

In light of my post yesterday... I thought it would be fitting to post a link to the following article from today's New York Times.

Guantanamo Comes to Define U.S. to Muslims
By SOMINI SENGUPTA and SALMAN MASOOD

Paper Wasps and Hornets, a Little Dose of Reality (Please click here to read linked article)

Paper Wasps and Hornets, a Little Dose of Reality (Please click here to read linked article)

Before reading today's post - please click on this link or the title above to read an article from today's New York Times. The rest of what I have to say will make more sense if you read the article first. Thanks, and please forgive me for bringing this into your day if you haven't already seen this bit of news.

As I sit here watching these wasps after reading the linked article, I remember that they are only here because, in the first hour after their discovery, my girlfriend and I felt something tapping timidly on the shoulder of our combined consciousness asking us to show them mercy. The initial decision to allow the wasps to live was not the most obvious choice, but it has proved to be a rewarding one. Right now I'm very glad that we both listened to the little voice whispering in each of our minds... but if we had chosen to ignore it, I might not even remember today that it ever spoke to me about a group of wasps on the balcony.

The National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders has this to say about paper wasps: "Paper Wasps are much more tolerant of people and minor disturbances than are hornets and yellow jackets." This is a good thing. With this knowledge, a healthy bit of curiosity, and a lifelong fascination with insects whirling around in my head... the decision was made to let one group of the colonizing wasps continue building. The others would be sprayed with a water spray bottle, (for days!) until they decided to pick up camp and go off in search of a more hospitable location - (one in which a precisely aimed barrage of "Smart Squirts" wasn't constantly bombarding their construction projects).

My girlfriend and I made the decision to let those wasps live on the balcony. Strange as it may seem to some of you, I feel responsible now for their fate. That nest is what it is today because of a decision that we made together. Would anyone else care if I killed those wasps tomorrow with a brick? Some of you who have read this blog might... if I told you about it; but my neighbors probably wouldn't mind at all - in fact some of them might be wishing that they could do that right now. I think that the argument can be made that I would have been justified had I chosen to have these wasps exterminated the moment that they were discovered; but I think that there can also be an equally compelling argument made that it would be unethical for me to kill them now.

These wasps are not a true threat to me. I have stood on a chair less than a foot and a half away from their nest, and while they have taken a defensive alert stance looking me right in the eye, letting me know that they'll defend their nest if necessary, they have never attacked me. They look very much like hornets, they sound very much like hornets, they even have the ability to sting just like hornets if provoked - but the very important difference is that they are not hornets; and what may be more important to the moral issue here is... whatever they become, they become because of a choice that I made which allowed the vast majority of them to come into existence in the first place.

I am responsible for the conditions in which they now find themselves. I am responsible then, to some degree, for my treatment of them... no more and no less so than I was on the very first day that the first few wasp royals arrived. If I choose to kill 25 wasps today, I will have allowed 21 lives to come into existence, in order to satisfy my curiosity and to relieve my boredom, only to destroy it when it no longer suits my fancy. That option is simply unacceptable in my view. It may have been morally acceptable for me to exterminate the wasps when they first arrived, when they may have truly been perceived as an unavoidable hostile threat to be dealt with - but now I've made the decision to let this group live and thrive. They exist in their current location because I wanted to watch them and learn from them. I am responsible for allowing this society of wasps to form in this fashion under my supervision. Would it be right for me to destroy them when they're no longer of any use to me? Would it be any less unethical for me to allow this particular colony of wasps to die if I discovered that an exterminator would be spraying the entire apartment complex tomorrow, and did nothing to protect them?

If they become hazardous to me, I will put their nest in a gallon jar in the middle of some dark, cool night when they are docile and less likely to become agitated. I will transport them and their home to the swamp and try to set it carefully in some nook of a tree, where the wasps can decide what to do with their traumatically altered, but sustainable lives. I can say all of this with confidence because I know a lot about wasps; I guess you could say that I have an in-depth understanding of my potential adversary, with whom, for the moment, I happen to share a very unique, albeit tenuous, relationship. Because of this I am able to deal with them ethically and without fear, from a place of compassion and humanity, without endangering myself.

Could I go up to their nest and "shake it up a bit" just to see what they'll do? Of course I could! Would people laugh at me and shake their heads when the wasps go into a mad frenzy and swarm around me to defend their nest and their way of life, stinging this once tolerated, supposedly "superior" and more powerful observer into submission? Of course they would! These same people would also most likely eventually come to my aid and help to bandage me up, repeating over and over with a pitying look that I should have known better. They probably would say something like: "Didn't you know that you were playing with fire?"

Humans can do something that paper wasps can't: they can change their programmed response to a particular stimulus. If I were to decide to smash that wasp nest, and those wasps had the ability to transform themselves instantly into hornets, I believe that they would transform before my eyes into the most formidable horde of hornets ever seen. If you saw someone torturing someone you love, and you had the ability to become some sort of super hero with super-human abilities capable of bending steel and moving mountains... wouldn't you do it to protect that special person? I bet that most of us would; and I doubt that many of us would take time out to show the torturer any mercy. Even these paper wasps, who can only ever be the more docile, less aggressive members of their order, could teach me a lesson that I'd never forget if handled carelessly.

Our country has made a multitude of choices in the past that has helped create and mold the world in which we live today. We have created situations and tensions globally that are not completely unlike this relatively harmless wasp nest, with individuals alerted to our presence and watching our movements closely for signs of hostile activity. There are innocent people being tortured and killed in many different locations worldwide. There are unknown, and unidentified, "suspected terrorists" being held against their will and without charges in prisons around the globe. People suffer and die without much explanation and without enough publicity. Their families are force-fed questionable justifications and terse statements which resemble too closely the blanket clause of "collateral damage" that has been used to decree the end of life, posthumously, for countless fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters over the last 4 years.

The enemies of freedom and democracy are not the only ones committing moral and ethical crimes. The more we stir up the nests of those who, for the moment, mean us no harm... the more sworn enemies we are sure to find, transformed versions of the relatively peaceful, rightfully suspicious, co-inhabitants of this planet, (our communal "sacred space"), that we see today. Who will be at fault if they choose to fight back against what they see as an unjust attack on their basic human rights? Is it any use to ask these kinds of questions when you're being chased by a massive coalition of enraged enemies that you've brought to life? I think that it "wouldn't be prudent at this juncture" for us to wait to find out. I think that we would be well served to ask these questions now, while some of our potential enemies in this world are still merely adversaries poised in a defensive posture, watching to see what will happen next.

If the man described as the victim in this article was, in fact, innocent of any crime - I sincerely hope that whoever is responsible for his treatment is punished to the full extent allowed by law. I doubt that the maximum allowable punishment will be sufficient to suit the crimes allegedly committed here, but I do hope that whatever that penalty is, it will be imposed. Even if the man described in this article as the victim was a terrorist of some sort, I still think that it is unjust for us to be treating prisoners of war, (and that is what they should be considered), in this manner. I fear that it is entirely too possible that nothing in the way of justice will prevail in this case.

If it is now acceptable for us to do this kind of thing to other civilians who we suspect "might" be a part of the opposition, then what can we say in our defense when the real members of the opposition do the exact same types of things to our uniformed soldiers, who are without question their declared enemy? What message are we sending to the more docile, less aggressive element of other societies if we allow this kind of thing to go unpunished? Shouldn't we be doing all that we can do to ensure that this kind of thing doesn't happen in the first place? It is a moral question. Each one of us has to listen for our own answer. Inaction is an action. Is allowing this kind of thing to continue acceptable?

I wonder how many of us truly understand the facts of this "War on Terror" that we are fighting. How well do we really understand our enemy? Do we, as a society, truly know who are enemies are? Do we know well enough how to deal with those who may not want to share our way of life in every detail, but who nonetheless do have a desire to live peaceably, (or at least non-aggressively), with us on the same planet? We are playing with fire all over the world today. If there are other worlds out there, with inhabitants observing our actions from afar, they may be getting ready to enjoy a hearty laugh at our expense. Unfortunately I don't think they'll be running to our rescue when we feel the stinging begin, and there is nowhere for us to hide. posted by Ahab @ 5/20/2005 12:51:00 AM

Paper Wasps Over My Doorway 19 May 2005

Here is a picture of my paper wasp nest.
If you're interested in learning the differences
between paper wasps and yellow jackets...
Please follow the links below:

Paper Wasps

Yellow Jackets

Persistence of the Wasps - Part 1

There are wasps living on my balcony.

They live their lives like any other ordinary paper wasps... but these are no ordinary hymenopterons. These wasps are special. This particular group chose the short overhang in the wall just above the sliding glass door that leads out onto my balcony. They are alive today because they made that decision; and I am richer for it.

It was a sunny day in April when the wasps invaded my apartment complex. The trees were already shedding the petaled lingerie of their lusty spring orgy; and the pollen which flowed over the asphalt in rivers of gold just days before was now concentrated in thin lines along the gutters of the streets and parking lots. Scorned lovers, Dear John letters from one blossoming tree to another were lying dishevelled in grubby clumps mixed with dirt, bearing witness to the inequity of life.

Walking groggily out into the warmth of the sunlight, I stretched and yawned, and revelled in the beautiful reds and greens that met my gaze... when suddenly, from out of nowhere, I was buzzed by an obviously disgruntled co-inhabitant of my sacred space. My first reaction was to hop backwards through the sliding glass door and slide it very quickly shut. Then I looked swiftly all around me to make sure that whatever it was hadn't come even further into the place that I consider to be mine for the moment. He... it... she... hadn't.

When I looked out the glass of the doorway - I saw a captivating sight. There were wasps working on their nests. Yes... nests. From the doorway I could see 2 distinct groups of wasps clinging to the roof of my balcony and clustering around central points that I knew would soon become the anchors for their new colonies. A bit more investigation proved that there was a third nest anchored just outside and just above my sliding glass door. This discovery was a bit alarming, but a tad exciting as well. It's not everyday that multiple groups of wasps decide to change the zoning of your balcony to prime residential real estate.

It is fascinating that these individuals, each a princess who had survived the winter in solitude, had chosen this day, this very hour, to join forces and strive together to build what nature was inspiring them to build. There were, at that moment, immediately outside my apartment alone, four separate groups of wasps working diligently, (the fourth group was discovered less than a half an hour later trying to create an anchor just under the eve of my front door). How many thousands of other wasps were doing exactly the same thing all over in at least the local area? Had some great trumpet call echoed throughout the trees all around me, resounding in a frequency range beyond the grasp of human ears, signalling to the wasps in each of their individual locations that the moment for action and social cooperation had arrived?

However it came about, it was obvious that the time for solitude was over. Whatever was to come next was completely new for these, the oldest surviving paper wasps of this species now living in this, their world. Did they wonder, as they arrived at this unknown location with an overwhelming urge to create something new together, whether conditions had been like this for their great-great-great grandmothers on that long ago forgotten spring day? Had their mothers told them fables, passed down through the generations, which told of their distant relatives and the challenges that they overcame a whole year ago?

Had these wasps ever seen each other before the moment that they arrived, literally at my doorstep, to start doing what the Universe asked of them? Did they all just come to what looked to be a safe harbor, drop anchor, and hoist some secret, unrevealed flags to let the others in the vicinity know of their intentions? How did they all get here? How did they decide who would work with who? Why was it that this has been happening every year, for eons, and I was just now getting to see it in action?

I wonder what life would be like if humans were able to discern every one of nature's trumpet calls that sound out every day with unfathomable regularity. I wonder how much differently we would chose to live our daily lives if we were actually able to understand, with clarity, what is really going on all around us. Why do they get to know, without a doubt, what they're supposed to do, and how they're supposed to live, while I'm left wondering about my purpose? Perhaps it's yet another sign of the inequity of life.

Ahab's Quest

Today I decide once again to speak out about those things that have meaning to me.

Today I attempt to face down my demons while allowing my spirit to soar.

Today I rejoice in the wonderful miracle of the Devine Universe, in a way that is meaningful and suitable for a reality which has given me the gifts of life, awareness, reason, and emotion.

Today I remind myself that I am just one tiny part of that gigantic Universe, and that I have within me the power to change all of history for the better or for the worse.

Today I will remember that there are others who would sacrifice much of what they have to experience all of the opportunities and luxuries that I take for granted.

Today I will remember that there are people being killed, and others killing in my name so that I can experience all of the opportunities and luxuries that I take for granted.

Today I seek a way to have an impact, to make a difference, to be a voice of sobriety in a world drunken on excess materialism, fascinated with our own amazing ability to create, and largely ignorant of our incredible legacy of destruction.

Today I will defend the poor and fight for the voiceless and the weak.

Today I speak for the life-giving earth, for the spirit of mankind and the true meaning of life which has been lost behind a smokescreen of greed and commercialism.

Today I will not cheapen who I am by succumbing to messages about who I should be, what I should wear, how I should act, or what I should say in order to "fit in".

Today I will remember who I am, find real meaning in the world, do things that are really important, and recognize those that are mere distractions.

Today I will willingly give love and will open my heart to receive it, unashamedly, and fully.

I choose this day to walk the walk of a man, and not that of a slave to the dictates of society, tradition, and expectations.

Today I have the power to change my future and that of the world in which I live.

Ahab