G.K. CHESTERTON: THE EVERLASTING MAN

Chesterton:

From The Everlasting Man:

Now it is very right to rebuke our own race or religion for falling short of our own standards and ideals. But it is absurd to pretend that they fell lower than the other races and religions that professed the very opposite standards and ideals. There is a very real sense in which the Christian is worse than the heathen, the Spaniard worse than the Red Indian, or even the Roman potentially worse than the Carthaginian. But there is only one sense in which he is worse; and that is not in being positively worse. The Christian is only worse because it is his business to be better.

It is also our business to be better. I take exception to our Mr. Reynolds, who is writing tonight:

That's a lot less courage than was displayed by the U.S. soldier who complained to his superiors about abuses at Abu Ghraib, resulting in an investigation that got his commanding general relieved in January -- months before this issue went public.

And also...

He's right -- more coverage of prisoner abuse in a week than they gave Saddam's torture and mass murder in a decade.

As to the first point, we can see that the Pentagon was able to act so long before the issue went public because they illegally classified it. I don't disagree with their decision--the law should probably be changed to permit just this kind of thing. Nevertheless, when you stack the deck, you don't get credit for guessing where the aces are. They were on top of it before others because they knew it was coming and took steps to keep others from knowing.

As to the second point, Chesterton was right. It may be only one sense in which this is worse than what went on in Saddam's Iraq, and it is not that it is positively worse. It is still a very real sense. It is our business to be better. Those who have betrayed us and our faith in them, and who have soiled the uniform that represents us all, they should face the firing squads. I wrote elsewhere:

The firing squad is exactly the right punishment for those servicemen directly involved in sexual torture, as with forcible rape. I suppose that just why I think so needs explaining.

Human nature is immutable. We would like to argue that Americans "aren't the kind of people" who engage in torture. That isn't so. The fact is that Americans are every kind of people; and, furthermore, that all kinds of people learn to torture.

Consider that we make the opposite argument in the case of democracy. We argue boldly what is yet to be proven, which is that Iraqis are just like any other kind of people, and can learn to do democracy. Yet we turn aside from what is definitively proven, which is that no human culture has been able to forgo torture.

If America is morally better than Iraq, it is not because the kinds of people who live in America are better. It is because the system is better, and it is better in exactly this way: it subjects all men to consequences (rule of law), while protecting those who search out the truth of what Americans have done (the press, the courts, the police, "whistleblowers," citizens who report crimes, even criminals who turn State's evidence).

Now that we know the truth, we must have the consequences. And what consequence should it be? Grant that human nature includes a certain disposition to torture, as evidenced by its universal practice; and that we want to prevent the incidence of torture completely; and that we cannot drive humanity out of our military, which is made of nothing else.

The only answer is to put so great a weight of shame and fear on torture that men, given the opportunity, will not practice it. The firing squad has the correct mix of effect and symbol. The effect--a quick but painful death--is terrifying. The symbol, meanwhile, is the squad itself. A few moments before they were your unit mates. Now they reject you; strip your uniform of its insignia; and then, executing their military function of Rifleman, gun you down as an enemy.

The administrative punishments still include the stripping of insigina and the casting out. But--if the man is no longer a soldier, he is still an American. These acts are treason as much as they are rape, torture, sexual abuse. The practitioners should be both driven out, and killed as foes.

In that way, the regiment is purged. The propensity to torture may remain in every man still in the unit, because it remains in all men. But by the practice of torture, the regiment--the Republic--is unstained. No lesser punishment is complete.

The UCMJ almost certainly doesn't allow for it now, but execution is the traditional punishment for rape in wartime. We should push to restore it. These soldiers have done more damage to the war than if they'd taken Indymedia's advice and fragged their officers. All that we've seen so far--even for the deaths--has been discharge without prison. That serves no function. If this happens again six months on, the cost to the war will be impossible to calculate.

We must not allow the sacrifices of the brave to be so wasted.