Return of the anti-Keillor
The Star Tribune's thoroughgoing liberalism rules the paper from stem to stern with the exception of metro columnist Katherine Kersten -- and one columnist who has asked us to protect his or her identity. S/he writes that s/he has become the self-appointed "Anti-Keillor" to rebut Keillor's liberal rubbish whenever it appears in the Star Tribune. Because Keillor's wretched column appears in the Strib's expanded Sunday opinion section, our correspondent will be writing most Mondays. We posted the columnist's first commentary as the anti-Keillor here two weeks ago. Today s/he writes:
Yesterday's column by Garrison Keillor -- "Why you didn't see the raven this year" -- about Halloween in the good old days before color TV and conservative talk radio, had a relatively low anti-Bush content.Our friend signs off as "The Other Conservative Star Tribune Columnist."
It took The Old Socialist until paragraph four to mix politics with fun and mention the Nixon masks. Several leaps and bounds of logic later, he was describing George W. Bush as Torturer-in-Chief:I feel fine today, thanks for asking. But I have a healthy sense of dread, due to having grown up when I did. You children missed out on Richard Nixon: He was Halloween personified. An unctuous creepy figure who had not a shred of the genuine in him and yet, say what you will about him, Richard Nixon was never in favor of torture. He never strutted on a stage and said, "If I knew that America was in imminent danger of being attacked by a million rabid fruit bats and that one particular horrible evil person was in possession of secret info about that attack, I would not hesitate for one moment to drive red-hot needles under that person's fingernails" -- that sort of thing did not pass for political discourse back in Nixon's day. But times have changed.While times may have changed since Nixon, the principles of warfare have not. The simple, ugly fact is this: What's unthinkable in peace is indeed thinkable in war. War is, after all, nothing more than legalized mass murder. That's why it's to be avoided, if possible, and brought to a swift end, once begun.
When it comes to the awful business of war, Bret Stephens has written a brilliant column about those who admonish us about waterboarding. The crux of Stephens' argument is this:"... opponents argue that [waterboarding] is unconscionable and inadmissible under any circumstances, even in hypothetical cases where the alternative to waterboarding is terrorist attacks resulting in mass casualties among innocent civilians. [I]t is possible to avoid this choice if one is also prepared to pay for it in blood —- if not in one's own, than in that of kith and kin and whoever else's life must be sacrificed to keep our consciences clear."Roughly 150,000 Japanese and German children under the age of 14 were killed by Allied bombs during World War II. Does that make the Allies torturers and war criminals on an unimaginable scale?
On the face of it, yes.
But given that it was the Germans and Japanese who bombed civilians first (like Al Qaeda), and given that they would have dropped the atom bomb on us had they possessed one (as Al Qaeda dreams of doing), were we not justified in doing almost anything to end World War II as fast as possible?
The nasty, brutish truth is, yes. We were justified.
Yet, down from Mount Sanctimonious comes Keillor with a stone tablet engraved, "Thou shalt not waterboard."
...even though it's been used only 3 times, according to most reports.
...even though in one of those cases, it broke Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to a number of active plots against the United States, and who later admitted it was only because of the waterboarding that he talked.
No, thou shalt not waterboard.
But...if waterboarding is wrong and should be outlawed immediately, where is our Democratic Congress? Why hasn't the Pelosi House or the Reid Senate voted on legislation to ban waterboarding? They could vote to outlaw it tomorrow. But they choose not to.
Why is that? Is it because liberal Bush-bashers want to have it both ways until Election Day 2008?
Currently, they enjoy the benefits that come from our enemies not knowing which aggressive interrogation methods we may use. At the same time, Keillor, the harpies on The View, kooks at Dailykos.com, and others get to sneer from the sidelines and cry "Torture!" They can have it both ways.
Now. Personally, if there's a humane way to extract information from a terrorist short of waterboarding, I'm all for it. But, forgetting the Islamofascists for a moment, if your daughter were kidnapped and you had the guy tied to a chair who knew her location, who would you call first, the UN Commission on Human Rights or Jack Bauer? I thought so.
Even if waterboarding were outlawed, why broadcast the fact to Al Qaeda? How does it help to show our playbook to the other side? Exactly how will that shorten the war?
Apparently, three waterboardings are too much for Keillor. Apparently, he'd prefer the good old days, when two atomic bombs were needed to end a World War. It may take years and hundreds of thousands of additional lives, but at least his conscience will be clear.
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