Fury, wrath... urge to destroy.
Aug. 26th, 2004 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI travel to and fro in the Internet.
Sometimes I find things which irritate, some with anger, and occaisonally things which make me angry.
Yesterday I was at Washington Monthly and found
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004572.php
It was in the irritation category. The topic started with the Schlessinger Report and moved to torture as a way to get information. You all know how I feel on that one.
Today I went back, to see what reply my comments had gotten.
Anger wasn't the half of it. I am coming down now, starting to lose the twitchy fingers and heaving stomach of adrenaline. I still want to smash things, to vent all the pent up energy of my fight response, but I'll get better. I'll drink some more coffee, eat some yogurt, maybe some chocolate pudding (breakfast of champions) and wish I could go out and work on the garden.
But I'm pissed.
Yes, I'm pissed at "Charlie" who got me worked up (but I told him off, go and read it. ctrl f and Terry K will get you in the neighborhood, if you don't want to read the first 130 odd posts, before I get involved. If you do that, scan up, a bit).
But I am more pissed off that such attitudes are so prevalent.
Saddened too. Not to hurt anyone's feelings, but Abu Ghraib was hard, because people I knew (well, with whom I felt the level of knowledge correspondence gives) said, mostly unknowing, that they thought me a monster, because interrogation must require torture.
And to have someone accuse me of being somehow lax, because I won't practice torture, well lets just say it's a good thing it was said at a remove.
Sometimes I find things which irritate, some with anger, and occaisonally things which make me angry.
Yesterday I was at Washington Monthly and found
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004572.php
It was in the irritation category. The topic started with the Schlessinger Report and moved to torture as a way to get information. You all know how I feel on that one.
Today I went back, to see what reply my comments had gotten.
Anger wasn't the half of it. I am coming down now, starting to lose the twitchy fingers and heaving stomach of adrenaline. I still want to smash things, to vent all the pent up energy of my fight response, but I'll get better. I'll drink some more coffee, eat some yogurt, maybe some chocolate pudding (breakfast of champions) and wish I could go out and work on the garden.
But I'm pissed.
Yes, I'm pissed at "Charlie" who got me worked up (but I told him off, go and read it. ctrl f and Terry K will get you in the neighborhood, if you don't want to read the first 130 odd posts, before I get involved. If you do that, scan up, a bit).
But I am more pissed off that such attitudes are so prevalent.
Saddened too. Not to hurt anyone's feelings, but Abu Ghraib was hard, because people I knew (well, with whom I felt the level of knowledge correspondence gives) said, mostly unknowing, that they thought me a monster, because interrogation must require torture.
And to have someone accuse me of being somehow lax, because I won't practice torture, well lets just say it's a good thing it was said at a remove.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 12:27 am (UTC)It's amazing how all of the torture advocates keep putting their opinions out there with no research, or consideration of what real interrogators do.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 12:48 am (UTC)People don't know, and they assume the odd little world picture they have of pain being a motivator (we spank kids right?) will translate to getting good information.
This guy had the chance to see what I thought, and then proceeded to tell me I was wrong, and that he knew better than I. It irked me.
I know that the line between the acceptable, and the horrible, is thin. I can see where I might step over it. That has been known to keep me up nights. When I teach, we look at the students, trying to see which ones might be prone to cross that line. They get extra attention, and have been failed for that.
But I could cross the line. It would take great provocation, but it could happen. Which is why I get so bent when someone tells me I ought to be doing it.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 12:59 am (UTC)Case in point: the movie Mississippi Burning, where a black FBI agent gets a Klan-affiated sherriff to cough up by threatening to castrate him. In the real story that the movie is based on, the FBI paid a few kilobucks to an informant to get the same information.
What? You want Hollywood movies to portray military interrogations (or whatever you call the situation where Angel beats up Merl to learn more about the Force Of Darkness Of The Week) more realistically? From the way you've described it on the Electrolite threads, it can take many hours or days for a man's desire as a soldier to keep military secrets to give way to his desire as a human being to talk to whoever is available to speak with. How are you going to show that process in a 42-minute TV show without making the target of interrogation look like a complete pushover?
PS: The people who hang out in the comment threads in the Washington Monthly blog are, shall we say, not like the people who hang out in the comment threads in Electrolite.
We know better....
Date: 2004-08-27 01:07 am (UTC)Anyone who condones monstrosities in the name of "intelligence" is a fool and has no soul to worry about.
Mind if I pray for you, hon? (And for me, but that's another story.)
Re: We know better....
Date: 2004-08-27 01:16 am (UTC)Nope, can't hurt.
What I'd love is for a whole lot of people to go over there and pound the rhetorical crap out of him.
TK
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-28 04:42 pm (UTC)