You Cry… When You Care!

Most of us feel sad when we see or hear of some tragedy… usually intensifying when it either affects a loved one or a neighbor. Even if it is a scene from far away, whereupon a train or plane crashes, or perhaps lightning hits a child swimming, or a shark attacks someone… we feel sad. This writer decided the other day to  once again view Spielberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List, following that with Frank Piersen’s 2001 film Conspiracy. The former film captures the 1941 atrocity of the Krakow ghetto massacre, where Jewish life meant nothing to the SS German command and troops. How difficult it was to see how inhumane one group could behave towards another group that it labeled subhuman. In the case in Conspiracy, based on transcripts found after the war of a 1942 meeting at Wannsee, outside of Berlin, we see where the massacres like that at Krakow had led. A group of 15 high ranking Nazi Party and SS officials met under the leadership of SS General Reinhard Heydrich to tackle the ‘Final Solution’ of what they called ‘The Jewish Question’. In the end, Heydrich got the consensus he needed to gas and incinerate the Jews of Europe. A truly despicable set of events in a truly despicable time in history.

As with the majority of German citizens during that period, so too today’s majority of Americans either do not wish to know, or really do not care that much regarding torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2002, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo and Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee drafted what is now referred to as the ‘Torture Memos Part 1′. This document advised the CIA, the DOD and the President on the use of what they (Orwellian?) called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’: mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and  (the infamous) WATERBOARDING. Their advice was that these actions might be ‘legally permissible’ under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the ‘War on Terror’ (another Orwellian phrase?). You see, in our country, we had, in addition to our signing of the 1949 Geneva Accords against torture of detainees and POWs, anti torture laws passed in 1994.U.S. Code Title 18, Sections 2340- 2340A makes it ‘a federal crime for anyone acting in a U.S government capacity to commit torture or to conspire to do so.’ Those convicted under the law can be sentenced to prison for up to 20 years, and the death penalty may be imposed if death results from the torture. The law applies to ALL U.S. nationals, including as high up as the president. Those who study law know that the 1st and 2nd memos by Yoo and Bybee in 2002 tried to use the same mumbo jumbo wordplay rationalization that the Nazis did in their Nuremberg race laws. By the way, as explained to you in earlier columns of mine, Yoo is now a professor at U. of Cal at Berkeley, and Bybee a federal judge. So much for being held accountable for evil.

When a detainee or possible terrorist suspect is tortured by us, most of the mainstream media and hypocrite Congress turn a blind eye. ‘We are at war’, they say. Ditto for some coward sitting at a monitor board in a nice air conditioned office here at home who pushes the mouse and sends the deadly drone missile off to do its deed. No capture, no need for torture… just kill! And if there is (another Orwellian phrase?) collateral damage; well, we are at war now aren’t we? Question for all those brave and patriotic fellow Americans of mine who support this type of thing: What if? What if Israel agents find out that your Palestinian neighbor, an engineer living next door to you, who happens to exchange Christmas cards with you, was giving hefty donations to the families of suicide bombers? The Israelis feel he is too dangerous to allow to go on donating huge sums, so they call for a ‘drone attack’ on him when he is at home. As with what our country does in Pakistan or Yemen, no need to get approval from the ‘host’  nation…it is just done!  Problem is, you get the phone call at work that day notifying you that not only was his home destroyed, but the missile did a little collateral damage and took out your home too… with your family inside! One can imagine the outrage when it is one of our own that falls through the cracks of ‘legal illegalities’ , to echo what the Bush and now the Obama gangs have done.

It is bad enough that we working stiffs are tortured by the corporate world each and every day. We get screwed up and down with fees and increases and less and less service by banks, landlords, phone companies, cable providers, retailers, insurance companies… every way possible. Perhaps I am making my own argument for the apathy regarding torture and overkill phony wars by our nation: Too stressed out and tired to really care! Perhaps. Yet, as Chris Hedges advises in his new book The Wages of Rebellion, it takes faith in truth and a better answer to all this which then supplies energy for doing the ‘right thing’. Thomas Swift had the best line of all when he said “You know you are in the presence of genius by the confederacy of dunces that line up against him.”

Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He is a free lance columnist (found on World News Trust, Nation of Change Blog, Truthout.org, TheSleuthJournal.com, The Intrepid Report , The Peoples Voice, Information Clearing house, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice and many other sites worldwide). Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been an activist leader since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at [email protected]