Water board a couple of Islamic terrorist and the World denigrates America and accuses Americans of losing their moral compass and authority. For not living up to the high ideals of her founding fathers as contained in the Constitution.
To a certain extent I agree with the turn the other cheek crowd who argue that we should have turned to peaceful means to deal with fundamentally disturbed people who sponsored September 11, 2001. On the other hand, is it reasonable to believe that diplomacy will work with people who believe suicide bombers and honor killings are reasonable?
Consider Samira Ahmed Jassim, the self proclaimed mother of female suicide bombers whose recruiting methods focused on distraught women. And when circumstances did not provide enough natural candidates, dear old Mom may have organized the rape of some especially vulnerable women to enhance her recruiting. Mom then diligently tried to persuade her victims, errr, candidates, that it was nobler to become a suicide bomber rather than to live with the dishonor of having been raped. Clearly mom was a fiendishly thoughtful woman; but, I do not believe she would respond well to diplomatic efforts.
Or how about the honor killing (murder) of a 17 year old Kurdish girl, Du'a Khalil Aswad, who dishonored her family because she was attracted to a Sunni boy. Eight or nine men (probably the girl's father and her brothers and family members and friends -- remember the intent here is to redeem the family honor) dragged the girl from her home and hurled stones and insults at her for over a half hour until she died. This is such a strange and perverse manifestation of honor and religion that it is impossible for me to comprehend.
My brother-in-law believes that there are Americans who scheme and plan ways to Americanize other cultures. This is far too complex a notion for me. Rather, I think, lex parsimoniae, that to any reasonable person American culture, with its freedoms and liberties, is preferable to any other culture on earth. So by comparison, a reasonable person would rather adopt American culture then suffer under totalitarian, tribal or archaic regimes. Certainly I have no time for any culture that would beget mothers and fathers so uncaring of their children. And personally, I think water boarding a few terrorists pales in comparison to the love shown by these parents.
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