Can you see me if I close and cover my eyes?

Covering Our Eyes Does Not Eliminate Evil
By Joseph Walther


This past Thursday, I participated in a discussion concerning the recently uncovered use of torture employed by U. S. Forces at Abu Ghraib, as well as the alleged torture going on at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One of the participants, an outspoken Born-Again Christian, expressed his belief that we should permit our military to do its job without interference by the spying eyes of the press. Considering the source of such a statement, I was light-years from shocked. He peppers the Internet with Christian tirades. They involve everything from the outright condemnation of all other religions to blaming those “filthy” liberals for all of the world’s evils. According to his warped perception of reality, there is some kind of a conspiracy among the “queers”, abortionists, and abortion doctors.

The others, myself excluded, expressed their feelings that torturing prisoners, regardless of side, is wrong and civilized people do not tolerate it. As for my position, it is simply foreign to my nature to permit people like this to get away with being so damn self-righteously phony.

I have no problems with opinions. Name anything that comes to mind and I have an opinion about it; and I’m not bashful about expressing it, either. For example, at my age, sixty-three, I think that the current method of checking the prostate is disgraceful and we should be diverting all available resources to finding a better way. I also think that there are far too many tree-hugging, tofu-farting do-gooders in this country. I want to force them, at gunpoint if necessary, to get a life. While I’m at it, let’s electrocute anyone who uses the words fair and taxes in the same sentence. Oh, and lest I forget, God spoke to me last night and told me to slay all who advocate organized religions with doctrines of exclusivity.

I know that I will get email from the clueless about my statements above. So, for the record, with the exception of the prostate and taxes stuff, I’m just kidding. Torturing human beings, however, is serious stuff and I am going to take a few paragraphs to address it from my perspective.

War is a nasty business. When a country’s way of life is at stake, as was ours during WWII, there is no such thing as fair. Countries do whatever it takes to win the war and win it as quickly as possible. After the First World War, the nations of the world condemned the use of chemical and biological weapons as inhumane. If anyone reading this is gullible enough to think that the inhumanity of it had anything to do with the condemnation shouldn’t walk the streets unsupervised.

The users of chemical weapons, including us God-favored Americans, found out that they were a problem. A slight wind shift would blow the chemicals back into their own faces. The nature of the localization of biological weapons proved to be too little bang for the buck. So the nations of the world pounced upon a way of eliminating a couple of inefficient killing methods and simultaneously get some great public relations. Notice, however, that those nations still have large stores of both types of weapons; just in case anyone feels compelled to kill off just a city or two or some other group who gets on our nerves.

Torture is a fact. It takes place on all sides. I served two combat tours during Viet Nam. The Viet Cong never took wounded prisoners. They also tortured, and then killed many of their healthy field prisoners. They did it on a regular basis and as a matter of policy. They were indiscriminant, too. They tortured and killed their southern brothers and sisters for the sheer fun of it. This is why counterinsurgency did not work. The Americans would spend weeks in a village helping the locals defend themselves and trying to make friends. As soon as a Special Forces counterinsurgency team left the village, the Viet Cong would swoop in. They would keep the old people alive. They would then rape the wives and young women in front of husbands and young men. Finally, they would kill the husbands and young men and burn the village.

I distinctly remember finding the remains of some American soldiers. There were seven in total and I knew four of the seven. Charlie had cut off some of their fingers, one at a time and very slowly. They used a razor to slice open, lengthwise, the arms and legs of two others. They had tied another prisoner to a tree, cut off his penis, shoved it into his mouth, tied a sweaty headband over his mouth, and then let him bleed to death. When the fun of the thing had worn off, they severed the remaining prisoners’ jugulars—an incision the width of the jugular itself—and let them bleed out. I estimated that it took between six and eight-minutes for death to end their living hell. This sort of ugliness raises a soldier’s blood pressure and resentment factor to say the least. Getting even with the scum becomes, at least temporarily, the prime directive.

Yes, Americans tortured; but they did it out of uncontrollable emotion in retaliation for the atrocities they witnessed on a daily routine. The difference, however, was the fact that it was not a matter of official policy. Torture was not something our government permitted our soldiers to use as a means to break up the boredom or to satiate a sadistic lust. Our government punished any American soldier it caught using torture. I have never condoned the actions of Lt. William Calley at My Lai. What he did to innocent women and children was an atrocity. However, after having four of his soldiers blown to bits that morning by bomb-strapped children, his logic took a trip to hell. His actions were wrong; but I have always understood his motivation.

I want the bible-thumping hypocrite I mentioned in the first paragraph of this column to listen to me and listen well. A “love thy neighbor but torture’s ok as long as no one is watching and it’s not reported on the nightly news” theology stinks and has nothing to do with the message of Jesus Christ. It makes you look as though you have converted from Christianity to the little known but rapidly growing Ostrich religion where “I see NOTHINK” is dogma and Sgt. Schultz is the patron saint.

I was born into a Catholic family. They sent me to the Catholic schools where I memorized the Baltimore Catechism and became a monument to guilt. I noticed early on in my Catholic education that telling the nuns that I wanted to be a priest elevated my grades by one or two letters with absolutely no effort on my part. Finally, I was “SOMBODY!” Besides, I never saw a priest who did not have a new car. I did not consider it much of a sacrifice to live a life of celibacy and chastity for these kinds of benefits. Besides, I didn’t even know what celibacy and chastity meant.

Then, along came that harlot, Debbie Ross, who REALLY liked me. I mean she REALLY LIKED me, if you get my drift. She taught me, for the first time, that urination was not the only function of the penis. She showed me that Padre Pedophile was no match for her and that those nuns had grossly overrated celibacy and chastity. From that point on, I saw no reason to hang around the sacristy.

I understand the reality of torture, sir. I have seen it exercised in fine detail by experts on both sides of a war. I hate it but I understand it. But, for someone who talks of Jesus Christ as though he was a personal friend, you need to understand that torture is not nice and it is contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ whether we hear it and see it or not!

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer. Contact him by clicking on the CONTACT ME link above or email him at TheTrueFacts@comcast.net