Real Torture

If you get your news from the MSM, it’s likely you missed the fact that the US Army recently uncovered an illustrated Al Qaeda Torture Manual (warning: this link shows some gruesome stuff) in an Iraqi Al Qaeda safe house. The manual is instructional, teaching the Islamofascists how to, oh, pluck out the eye of a detainee, or cut off an arm, or drag a victim behind a car, or blowtorch bare skin. Funny, haven’t heard a peep from the “human rights” advocates who continually chastise the US for its “torture” methods … you know, playing loud music, or allowing a female to touch a Moslem male, or, heaven forbid, handling the Koran inappropriately.

Wretchard of The Belmont Club comments:

The problem with the fake is that it is always shown up by the arrival of the Real Thing. The difference between the two is often so manifest that it seems ridiculous to think that anyone could have been fooled -- even momentarily -- by the counterfeit.

The problem with the word "torture" is that it has been so artfully corrupted by some commentators that we now find ourselves at a loss to describe the kinds of activities that the al-Qaeda interrogation manual graphically recommends. Now that the term "torture" has been put in one-to-one correspondence with such admittedly unpleasant activities as punching, sleep deprivation, a handkerchief pulled over one's face and loaded with water, searches by women upon sensitive Islamic men or the disrespectful handling of Korans -- what on earth do we call gouging people's eyes out?

Answer: we call it nothing. My fearless prediction is that not a single human rights organization will seriously take the matter up. There will be no demonstrations against these barbaric practices, often inflicted upon Muslims by other Muslims, in any of the capitals of the world. Not a single committee in the United Nations will be convened nor will any functionary in the European Union lose so much as a night's sleep over it. The word for these activities -- whatever we choose to call it -- will not be spoken.

The Left must be very careful when it uses terms like “Nazis” to describe America Troops or “Hitler” to characterize the Bush, or “Gulag” to describe Quantanamo, or “torture” to describe the “admittedly unpleasant activities” that we visit on those who want to kill us. When they use those words, they are left with no way to describe the real thing – something that is far more frightening. So they choose to ignore the real thing – to walk through the looking glass and choose to believe that “the threat is overblown," or that the “War on Terror” (admittedly a poor characterization of what’s happening) is nothing more than a “bumper sticker.”

And those on the Right (Senator McCain comes to mind) who suggest that our use of “admittedly unpleasant activities” dehumanizes us and somehow gives permission to our enemies to also use them, seem blissfully unaware that an American prisoner would welcome the kind of “admittedly unpleasant activities” that occur in Quantanamo. Particularly if given a choice between them and the activities suggested in the torture manual. But, of course, there is no choice, and what we do matters very little, if at all. Islamofascists follow the manual, and their gruesome acts of barbarism don’t trouble their Islamist hearts a bit.

So we choose to turn away, so that we don’t see the reality of our enemy. We choose to ignore hard facts, documented events, lies, barbarism, because to face it all is simply too hard. We choose the world as we wish it, not the world as it is.

But the choices that force us to look the other way allow evil to fester and grow. Someday, it may become too big to ignore, regardless of our choices. By then, it may very well be too late.