Dougherty Arts Center
The Dirty War
RECEIVED Thu., June 10, 2004
Dear Editor,
As I watched Attorney General Ashcroft refusing to enlighten the investigative body on Capitol Hill the other day regarding the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, I began to wonder what our offended citizenry will think when the whole ugly cat comes out of the bag. Selected prisoners in Guantanamo, who did not respond to our intelligence interrogators, were shipped off to third party countries such as Morocco and Egypt, where many of them have disappeared without a trace. These countries are not burdened with the same human rights concerns as ours and have no qualms about resorting to all kinds of barbarous methods of torture. If our war with the communist block countries was described as the Cold War, then clearly what we are involved in today with Islamic zealot terrorists could be called the dirty war. Our enemy does not choose to fight us by conventional means so we must develop new and more effective strategies. If, however, at the end of this process, we find that we have had to sacrifice our high standards for humane treatment of all individuals, then what have we gained and what have we lost? No matter the rage and helpless frustration that we all felt after 9/11, we must remember that that particular act was accomplished by a small group of very focused, and monumentally lucky, men armed only with a few box knives. Their will to die for their beliefs, and to murder innocent civilians, was in the end what made them successful. Are we prepared to begin murdering innocent civilians in suicide attacks in order to defeat this enemy? If it comes to that we will all be looking out our windows at a very different world on that day.
As I watched Attorney General Ashcroft refusing to enlighten the investigative body on Capitol Hill the other day regarding the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, I began to wonder what our offended citizenry will think when the whole ugly cat comes out of the bag. Selected prisoners in Guantanamo, who did not respond to our intelligence interrogators, were shipped off to third party countries such as Morocco and Egypt, where many of them have disappeared without a trace. These countries are not burdened with the same human rights concerns as ours and have no qualms about resorting to all kinds of barbarous methods of torture. If our war with the communist block countries was described as the Cold War, then clearly what we are involved in today with Islamic zealot terrorists could be called the dirty war. Our enemy does not choose to fight us by conventional means so we must develop new and more effective strategies. If, however, at the end of this process, we find that we have had to sacrifice our high standards for humane treatment of all individuals, then what have we gained and what have we lost? No matter the rage and helpless frustration that we all felt after 9/11, we must remember that that particular act was accomplished by a small group of very focused, and monumentally lucky, men armed only with a few box knives. Their will to die for their beliefs, and to murder innocent civilians, was in the end what made them successful. Are we prepared to begin murdering innocent civilians in suicide attacks in order to defeat this enemy? If it comes to that we will all be looking out our windows at a very different world on that day.
Pat McIntyre
