Marc Thiessen is a dick

Marc Thiessen is a dick

This is just a quick post I have to get off my mind. I first saw Marc on the daily show defending torture, and what I thought I saw was a man with a point of view I gut wrenchingly disagreed with but perhaps I could talk to about anything else and maybe reach a common ground. I have since seen him multiple times promoting his views as well as his ideas, and outside of the cordial yet contentious environment John Stewart creates, I realized who marc is, and it is the title of this piece. He is another one of those straw man arguers. His perfectly crafted straw man is based on the anecdote that he tells on every one of these shows, it’s long so I won’t quote it but just search once and you’ll hear it word for word exactly the same. The just of it is that Abu Zubaydah, Thanked his interrogators and that once Allah has seen that a brother has been pushed to his breaking point he is now free to spill the beans, and tell interrogators everything about future attacks. The premise of this is flawed on so many levels, first this is hinged on the idea that each drug dealing sociopaths with a penchant for killing innocents to see their names in print because they are such attention whores(my new name for terrorist-see flying with stupid for and explanation) interprets their religious text exactly the same way. It would be hard to find any two people of any religion who agree on the precise explanation of anything.

Second is that drug dealing sociopaths with a penchant for killing innocents to see their names in print because they are such attention whores, aren’t afforded the rights of the Geneva Convention, because they are drug dealing sociopaths with a penchant for killing innocents to see their names in print because they are such attention whores. While it is a nice circular logic he has put in place the problem with this is when applied to every suspected criminal the problems become apparent. He’s main point is they “target civilians” well this is literally a question of framing. I don’t agree but I’m sure a drug dealing sociopaths with a penchant for killing innocents to see their names in print because they are such attention whores would say they are targeting institutions, and while I don’t agree they could easily make the case that when we bomb a location suspected of housing drug dealing sociopaths with a penchant for killing innocents to see their names in print because they are such attention whores we are also targeting the surrounding civilian population, see framing. Law does not disappear just because we are scared. The point of the Geneva Convention isn't, like he says, to protect the people apart of it. No, the point of the Geneva Convention is to establish laws that apply even during war.

However the biggest and most obscene problem with this idea is that it is predicated on the premise that everyone captured is guilty and that in it of itself is what makes everything he says irrelevant. I'm sorry but without a trial, without some kind of legal system, there is no way to verify the person who is rounded up is actually the person who is responsible for dangerous acts of terror. A lot is made of the supposed time lost by mirandizing suspected terrorist. Again fear does not erase law or the reasons for them. Miranda rights aren't in place to protect sociopaths; they are put in place to make sure that innocent people aren't treated like sociopaths because someone mistook them for one. Marc you are a dick, and every time you scream that we aren't safe because we are no longer torturing people you show your paranoia, seriously we are all better than this man. You know Rumsfeld use to make the argument that the justice system is set up to error on the side of innocents, and so for everyone innocent person let go on “technicalities” five criminals go free. He goes on to say that is unacceptable for terrorism and that the reverse is much more acceptable 5 innocent people imprisoned to prevent one terrorist killing thousands of innocent civilians. This is the mentality that leads to Marc’s rationalization. What this rational fails to account for is the cause of terrorism. If Al Qaeda were truly only bent on the destruction of the west and every person who joined them believed in that one principal alone then perhaps this argument could be made. However I suspect that the aforementioned bombs we drop has something to do with people joining the group, as well as their perception that we are evil and want to destroy them and what better example of evil then torturing perfectly innocent people. This war on terrorism is not a war with conventional weapons; this is a war of perception, a war of words. More than the cold war our words matter, as do our actions. If we are to accept that we are in a war on terror then we have to battle on the actual battle front. The battle front is not where our military boots are, it’s in the homes, villages, and towns of everyone on this planet. To win this war the world has to marginalize Al Qaeda and their form of extremism. Hamas didn’t become a political force by bombing Israel; they became one by feeding and clothing Palestinians. Acting like the unbeatable, infallible super power does not make us look noble; it makes us look like Hypocritical Bullies and everyone even people who agree with the bully want to see a big bully go down.