To the memory of the women and men of the resistance, French and foreign, victims of the German Nazis and of the Vichy Government, tortured by the Gestapo in these buildings.
—

A simple, small plaque on the side of a building in Grenoble, France.

No, I am not invoking Godwin’s Law in the discussion of torture. I am pointing out the historical context of torture, which regimes have used it, which regimes have rejected it.

During the Cold War, anyone who was not a fervently true believing communist had no doubt that the Soviet Union used torture routinely.

The Soviet Union posed a threat not only of the annihilation of dozens to hundreds of cities in the United States, but arguably could have destroyed civilization as we know it.

Yet, we felt no need to publicly “reserve the right to torture” our enemies.

I strongly suspect that despite the capitalist window-dressing that the People’s Republic of China has put on their regime, torture is also a part of their repertoire, and my suspicions are not without some foundation.

Is this the company we want to be aligned with?

During the 1991 Gulf War, Americans were outraged at the broadcast images of downed pilots who had obviously been severely beaten.

Did we say we needed to treat Iraqi prisoners in the same fashion in retaliation?

What is torture? The definition I use is any act perpetrated upon a person in our power that if performed upon one of our troops would create the outrage that is so often displayed when our troops are treated with anything less than respect.

I have read in more than one place that we, the United States, should not state that we will never use torture because it gives our enemies some kind of advantage, knowing that we will treat them well they have no incentive to give information when interrogated. To wit, we need to make them fear us so they will cooperate. Our enemies supposedly have no regard for life, so we should have no regard for them.

The number of different ways this is wrong is staggering, yet reasonable people are presenting this argument that not only should we not say that we will not torture, but that we should torture.

Torture is wrong.

Torture is immoral.

Regardless of the “status” of those in our custody, whether “enemy combatant” or legitimate prisoner of war. The label we apply does not change the fundamental immorality of abusing those in our power. Labels are merely used to dehumanize those we hate to provide some comfort for our consciences. Our enemies dehumanize us, which allows them and their fellow-travelers to perpetrate the inhuman and inhumane acts that comprise their signature.

Do we have to become them to defeat them, when the threat they pose to us and our civilization is far, far less than that from the former Soviet Union?

Every time we torture someone (and yes, “waterboarding” and other acts we have deliberately performed on persons in our control do fit my definition of torture), we lower ourselves another notch towards the level of our enemies.

To put it simply, we are in danger of displaying exactly the immorality and disregard for life that we say are the characteristics of those we label “the terrorists.”

They kill those they think of as their enemies without regard to any other considerations because they have chosen to dehumanize those they oppose. They behead those they regard as their enemies as they would an animal, because they choose not to see them as human.

Now, some are saying we should torture those we regard as our enemies to put fear into them.

I won’t spell out the conclusion for you, but I urge you to move outside your comfort-box of “we are the good-guys” because our nature is shown by our actions, just as we claim that the actions of our enemies shows their nature.

Do the math.

Technorati Tags: amber and cruelty, anti-torture amendment, opinion, terrorism, torture

A couple of anthropologists are suggesting early man was far less the hunter, than the hunted.

At the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Washington, D.C., anthropologist Donna Hart of the University of Missouri in St. Louis presented the argument that fossil evidence and the experience today of monkeys and apes, the closest relatives to humans, “supports a ‘Man, the Hunted’ theory of evolution.”

Looking at fossils of early humans more than a million years old, Hart and her colleague, Robert Sussman of Washington University, argue that numerous examples of skulls bearing bite marks, some the kind made by saber-toothed cats and leopards, show up from sites in Asia and Africa. Further, the evidence for weapons — needed to hunt down that mastadon — and control of fire — needed to turn that mastodon into a meal — don’t turn up much later in the archaeological record.

Going back 2.5 to 5 million years ago, Hart and Sussman concentrated on the species Australopithecus afarensis. According to Sussman:

Australopithecus afarensis probably quite strong, like a small ape. Adults ranged from around 3 feet to 5 feet tall and weighed 60-100 pounds. They were basically smallish bipedal primates. Their teeth were relatively small, very much like modern humans, and they were fruit and nut eaters.

…

The predators living at the same time as A. afarensis were huge and there were 10 times as many as today. There were hyenas as big as bears, as well as saber-toothed cats and many other mega-sized carnivores, reptiles and raptors.

A. afarensis didn’t have tools, didn’t have big teeth and wasn’t very tall. He was using his brain, his agility and his social skills to get away from these predators.

…

Approximately 6 percent to 10 percent of early humans were preyed upon, according to evidence such as teeth marks on bones, talon marks on skulls and holes in a fossil cranium into which saber-tooth cat fangs fit.

The predation rate on savannah antelope and certain ground-living monkeys today is around 6 percent to 10 percent as well.

They further assert: many of our modern human traits, including those of cooperation and socialization, developed as a result of being a prey species and the early human’s ability to outsmart the predators.

Could it be if we returned to our pre-predator vegetarian ways we could actually unevolve into the peaceful, cooperative and social animals we may once have been?

I may well have to mull that over my steak tonight.

Hart and Sussman have compiled their research and theory in their book: Man the Hunted.

Footnote: As Jack should be back later this evening and, no doubt, up and posting tomorrow, I would like to thank him for the opportunity to come over here and exercise my brain a bit. Thus, my heartfelt thanks to Jack and his readers for the hospitality.

Given that today is the day I make my journey back to the United States (which will make my cat very unhappy, but this time he’s traveling with me as a carry-on, not in the cargo pet area, so he might be a bit less stressed this time), I am posting two photos, with relatively little commentary.

The first is a view down the street where my apartment in France was located. This photo is from the opposite angle than the first image I posted of rue Hector Berlioz. That particular picture of my street was one of the first I took with my new digital SLR. The image here was taken with my other digital camera, which while it isn’t an SLR is more than serviceable enough. The vast majority of cameras are sufficient for almost any non-specialized purpose; it is the subject and composition that make a great photograph, not the equipment.

As in the majority of the other images in this series, I have not changed the contrast or light levels, only the size.

A larger version will appear in a pop-up window if you click on the photo below.

This second image is of the Garden Park, or Parc du Jardin; this park was visible from the windows in the living room of my apartment in Grenoble. About ten yards to the right of the line of lights is the street in the photo above.

Black and white seemed appropriate both for this image in terms of composition along with serving as an emotional tag for the end of my sojourn in France and noting my journey back to the United States, prompted by the serious illness of my father.

Again, the thumbnail is linked to a larger image if you click it.

If all goes according to plan, I leave Grenoble by train at 5:00AM local time for a journey that will take me through Paris to Cincinnati then finally to Austin at around 8:00PM at that location, a total of about 22 hours travel time into a new life. Even though I am returning to where I came from one year and seven months ago, both the place from whence I came and I myself have changed.

As was written once in a brilliant book: And so it goes.

Technorati Tags: letters from Europe, photography, photos, photos of Europe, photos of Grenoble, pictures

Random Fate has been nominated for for the “Best of the Top 501 - 1000 Blogs” although how they made that determination on the ecosystem raking is unknown, given that the Random Fate entry in the ecosystem has been broken for over six months.

I’m surprised at the nomination. We’ll see what comes out of it.

(Written in haste at the Paris airport right before boarding the flight home)

This is my last guest post for a while. It was a hard decision. Should I leave you with Rebus Puzzles to do? Or perhaps another little story? Or better yet… something to boggle the mind.

Did you realize how many ways the word “Jack” can be used?

   1. often Jack Informal. A man; a fellow.
   2. a. One who does odd or heavy jobs; a laborer.
        b. One who works in a specified manual trade. Often used in combination: a lumberjack; a steeplejack.
        c. Jack A sailor; a tar.
   3. (Abbr. J) Games. A playing card showing the figure of a servant or soldier and ranking below a queen. Also called knave.
   4. Games.
        a. jacks (used with a sing. or pl. verb) A game played with a set of small six-pointed metal pieces and a small ball, the object being to pick up the pieces in various combinations.
        b. One of the metal pieces so used.
   5. Sports. A pin used in some games of bowling.
   6. a. A usually portable device for raising heavy objects by means of force applied with a lever, screw, or hydraulic press.
        b. A wooden wedge for cleaving rock.
   7. A device used for turning a spit.
   8. Nautical.
        a. A support or brace, especially the iron crosstree on a topgallant masthead.
        b. A small flag flown at the bow of a ship, usually to indicate nationality.
   9. The male of certain animals, especially the ass.
  10. Any of several food and game fishes of the family Carangidae, found in tropical and temperate seas.
  11. A jackrabbit.
  12. A socket that accepts a plug at one end and attaches to electric circuitry at the other.
  13. Slang. Money.
  14. Applejack.
  15. Slang. A small or worthless amount: You don’t know jack about that.

Psst, Jack… I hope you had a safe and uneventful trip back to the states.