Guantanamo (NO political debates please!)

[pianowolfi]

This is caused by a picture that I saw in the newspaper today: Guantanamo prisoners in orange overalls, tied up on hands and feet, tortured for years with sleep deprivation, extreme temperature differences, permanent bullying. It makes me cry. And it makes me desperate. What the heck are human beings able to do to other human beings!!!? As said in the title, it is not about political questions. I could also say "concentration camps" or "Archipel Gulag" or "Ruanda" There are so many places in the world where people TORTURE other people. I just have no words for all that. (and PLEASE also no religious debates!) I am only interested HOW you feel with others who are in a hopeless situation. A situation that in all probability NO one of us will EVER experience. A situation which is just beyond all bearing. A hellish situation. 

[pianistimo]

you are right, pianowolfi.  the geneva convention i thought was a permanent thing.  how to treat anyone.  most americans agree with this.  but, sometimes the military does other things.  they think that it will scare terrorists and give them something to think about before they take a plane and run it into the world trade center and kill many people by burning and jumping from many many stories up in the air.

the problem is - finding the tRUE perpetrators.  they are not young boys or even middle aged sometimes - they're old farts that want to ruin the usa.  the people below them are probably forced between a rock and a hard place.  they are killed if they do and killed if they don't.  i personally don't think we are obtaining that much information by interrogation or military methods.  i think we should listen to the regular people of each country and really hear what they are saying.  listen to their needs.  what their countries are needing.  if countries would share - the world would be a better place.

i hope that Jesus Christ returns to solve many world problems.  one of which is learning how to love an 'enemy.' 

[ahinton]

you are right, pianowolfi.  the geneva convention i thought was a permanent thing.  how to treat anyone.  most americans agree with this.  but, sometimes the military does other things.  they think that it will scare terrorists and give them something to think about before they take a plane and run it into the world trade center and kill many people by burning and jumping from many many stories up in the air.

Yes, that's right, Susan - it's called "the government" - and never forget that "the government" always knows what it has decided to convince you is in your best interests...

the problem is - finding the tRUE perpetrators.  they are not young boys or even middle aged sometimes - they're old farts that want to ruin the usa.  the people below them are probably forced between a rock and a hard place.  they are killed if they do and killed if they don't.  i personally don't think we are obtaining that much information by interrogation or military methods.  i think we should listen to the regular people of each country and really hear what they are saying.  listen to their needs.  what their countries are needing.  if countries would share - the world would be a better place.

But countries have "governments" - having a "government" is not something that afflicts only the US...

i hope that Jesus Christ returns to solve many world problems.  one of which is learning how to love an 'enemy.' 

If He does - and if He also decides next time to domicile himself in America (now you'd just love that, I know you would! - especially were He to set up a fine furniture manufacturing business in Philadelphia) - how well do you suppose He'd fare were He to end up standing against George Bush's successor for the Whiter-than-White House?

Best,

Alistair

[prometheus]

What the heck are human beings able to do to other human beings!!!?

Everything.

Many humans often claim that they are not capable of murder. We all are capable of acts of genocide, eventhough in our current state it just disgusts us beyond words(can't find stronger words right now).

All those humans that committed all those atrocities that were plenty in the past. There was nothing 'wrong' with them. They were perfectly normal humans.

[pianistimo]

he has his own government, ahinton.  but, we won't get into details right now.  obviously, the first thing will be to clean up a huge mess.

prometheus, i disagree that hitler was 'perfectly normal.'  i think he was possessed.  not in his right mind.  just as with cain, anger can lead to many things.  first jealousy, then anger, then hatred - then killing.  where does one cross over into possession?  i think - when one starts seeing the other as 'non-human.'  to treat a fellow human being the same or worse than an animal.  and, on top of that - to have no remorse.

[prometheus]

Dit Hitler personally kill 6 million people?

He probably didn't kill a single one.

No, one insane person wanted power and as a result about everyone in germany followed his orders into a slaughter larger than everything the world had ever seen before.

If one needed to be insane to kill people and one had only one insane person; Hitler, then we would never ever get 20+ million deaths.

[pianistimo]

but, the spirit behind the killing was personified.  one evil person can convince others of evil plans.  i don't think the holocaust would have happened without hitler.

[prometheus]

Maybe not. But antisemitism wasn't invented by Hitler. Hitler just learned it from other people.

The people didn't kill for Hitler. Hitler was also 'just a man'.

There will always be people like Hitler. That is a problem that cannot be solved. What can be solved is the other part. The fact that people who think killing is bad are able to kill on a large scale and torture people to death for no reason when they are placed in the right social structures.

Anyway, the way these things happen is not because there are insane twisted individuals. It is because others are willing to follow them.

[le_poete_mourant]

Alas, a discussion about this without including politics or religion is impossible.  It has already been proven.



To answer the question, though, it is quite possible that there are guilty people in Guantanamo as well as the innocent.  It is unfortunate that innocent people are included.  But it is also inevitable.  The innocent must pay for the wrongs of the guilty.  I think, in any government's eyes, it is a far lesser evil to localize suffering to a small group of people than to risk thousands of deaths becaue of moral conscientiousness.  This does not make it right, or any less horrible on an individual level.  On a larger scale, however, it can ultimately result iprofitably on the part of "public safety." 

Yes, torture is horrible, and I would not for a minute want to be subjected to it.  It's unfortunate that power leads to this.  But inevitable as well. 

That said, I do not condone it.

[ahinton]

he has his own government, ahinton.  but, we won't get into details right now.

No, indeed - otherwise we'd have to start considering the notion of America having two parallel governmental structures - the Republicans (with the Democrats as main opposition) and the Christians (with who knows who as the main opposition if any) - and I can already hear someone saying "isn't one President at least three too many?"...

Best,

Alistair

[pianowolfi]

Well I'll try again
This is caused by a day I'll never forget in my life: Two towers hit by two planes. Thousands of people dying. Hundreds of people in fear of burning alive jumping out of the towers.  It made me cry for hours. And it makes me desperate. What the heck are human beings able to do to other human beings!!!? As said in the title, it is not about political questions. I could also say "concentration camps" or "Archipel Gulag" or "Ruanda" There are so many places in the world where people TORTURE other people. I just have no words for all that. (and PLEASE also no religious debates!) I am only interested HOW you feel with others who are in a hopeless situation. A situation that in all probability NO one of us will EVER experience. A situation which is just beyond all bearing. A hellish situation.  How do you personally feel with other people in a state of unbearable pain?

[elspeth]

I don't think you can really empathise unless you've been there and let's hope none of us ever are... But my heart bleeds for them, and for the society we live in that can condone torture and still call ourselves civilised. I think there's some caveman in everyone - gain your place in the pecking order by any means available including violence if and when appropriate... and some people get into situations where their caveman gets the upper hand.

[pianowolfi]

I don't think you can really empathise unless you've been there and let's hope none of us ever are... But my heart bleeds for them, and for the society we live in that can condone torture and still call ourselves civilised. I think there's some caveman in everyone - gain your place in the pecking order by any means available including violence if and when appropriate... and some people get into situations where their caveman gets the upper hand.

Yeah. I think that you can empathize because you have been in similar situations in your life. Not in that enormous intensity of hopelessness. But in a lower grade everyone of us knows it. We are empathizing beings after all. Even chimps are empathizing.

[elspeth]

Sympathy, then, rather than empathy. I realise I'm splitting hairs, but they don't quite mean the same.

[pianowolfi]

Sympathy, then, rather than empathy. I realise I'm splitting hairs, but they don't quite mean the same.

Yes now it gets interesting. Would you mind to explain your concept of sympathy and empathy more in detail?

[elspeth]

Both words are an appreciation of someone else's feelings, but the difference is that empathy implies you've been there yourself so you do actually know how it feels to be in that situation, while sympathy implies you haven't actually been there but you appreciate the feelings that you imagine you would have in that situation.

Or hang on, have I got that distinction backwards? Looking at it again, I'm actually not convinced...

[ahinton]

Both words are an appreciation of someone else's feelings, but the difference is that empathy implies you've been there yourself so you do actually know how it feels to be in that situation, while sympathy implies you haven't actually been there but you appreciate the feelings that you imagine you would have in that situation.

Or hang on, have I got that distinction backwards? Looking at it again, I'm actually not convinced...

No - you have it correctly.

Best,

Alistair

[dnephi]

Puppy.

[ahinton]

Puppy.

Pardon?

Best,

Alistair

[cmg]

Well I'll try again
This is caused by a day I'll never forget in my life: Two towers hit by two planes. Thousands of people dying. Hundreds of people in fear of burning alive jumping out of the towers.  It made me cry for hours. And it makes me desperate. What the heck are human beings able to do to other human beings!!!?

I live within blocks of the former "two towers" and was present and on the street on that day.  So close I had to run from the clouds of smoke that swept the streets as the buildings fell.  I was there because it is my neighborhood.  Friends of mine worked in those buildings.  I'll never forget the woman, a stranger, who grabbed my hand and gasped when we saw the first human leap from those upper stories.  She was sobbing uncontrollably and cried out, "Angel flights.  Angel flights."

When the primary horror was over and two days had passed, my neighborhood was cordoned off by police.  We had to use passports just to get off and on our blocks.  Trucks were not even permitted to bring in food.  We, of course, could go out of our area to bring food back in.  But city residents outside our immediate area couldn't come in.  This lasted for two weeks.  Neighbors who had never spoken to me before, smiled, said "Good day," inquired after my health.  People held doors for others.  Things became beautifully civilized.  New Yorkers became thoughtful and kind towards one another.

No one spoke of revenge or reprisals until politicians came onto the scene.  I was shocked and so were my friends.  Having experienced such horror we just assumed people would now want peace.  We assumed that people in the US would want to modify rapacious government policies in the Mideast that had created so much hatred toward us.  Try to understand "the enemy's" point of view for a change.  The late Susan Sontag wrote of this in The New Yorker and actually received death threats for "colluding with the enemy."

We were wrong about empathy and sympathy.  Americans outside of the island of Manhattan wanted revenge.  Not compromise or understanding.  A country as powerful as this one -- with the nuclear capacity to destroy any country, yes, even the entire planet -- decided to stoop so low as to seek revenge.

Humans, when afraid, will always respond with violence.  In fact, fear, I believe, is the single source of all maladaptive behavior.  Even something as silly as "greed."  Isn't that just the fear of not having enough?  And it was fear that politicians used to stir up American anger.  Just as Hitler did with Germans in the 1920s over the Russian invasion threat.  As long as humans give in to fear there will be cruelty and violence.  And fear is wired into our very biology.  It's what triggers our defense mechanisms to survive.  We are, afterall, animals. 

I'm afraid it's rather hopeless, unless you take the individual stance.  You, as one person, must behave civilized.  What the others do is beyond your control.  History bears that out.
 
Sorry.  This is political, I suppose.   

[pianowolfi]

Sorry.  This is political, I suppose.   

No this is a very good and moving post! Thank you cmg! You are the first person I meet (though it's only over the net) who has been close to it.

[ahinton]

I live within blocks of the former "two towers"

Elliott Carter does as well; apparently he saw it from the window of his apartment while having some coffee before getting down to work that day. How this must have affected America's greatest living composer - who was born in New York and still living there almost 93 years later - can only be imagined; he nevertheless managed somehow to resign himself to getting back to work.

Thank you for the remainder of your post.

Best,

Alistair