Growing up in the 1950s next
to the small rural California oil town of Orcutt was idyllic. It was a period
of simplicity and certainty, both in the local area and in America. I can
remember my first day of school, bouncing along in the vintage school bus after
it had turned around in our driveway to head to school on a virtually vacant
country road. America, at that time, had a strong sense of right and wrong that
seems to be missing in today’s world, and in its place we see extremism.
Schools then had a clear
mission — to teach the three R’s and inculcate students to be patriotic
Americans. After World War II, most of the male teachers, including our school
principal and superintendent, Mr. Nightingale, were veterans. To this day I can
remember his large, looming figure at school assemblies extolling the virtues
of public education and how fortunate we were to live in this country.
Movies of the time also had
a strong patriotic theme that portrayed Americans as the ones who always played
by the rules. No matter what happened, Americans did the correct thing, and
they were out to make the world a better place. Listening to the national anthem,
pledging allegiance to the flag, attending school assemblies and watching
patriotic movies always brought a lump to my throat. In the eyes of a
schoolchild, we were the one on a white horse; always fighting for what was
right and good.
The ’60s, however, were a
time that challenged America’s moral compass. Life was no longer simple. In my
senior year in high school, even before the war started, our gym teachers began
preparing us boys for war with insane exercise routines. I am sure their
efforts helped save some of us. In no time at all, my friends were being killed
in the jungles of Vietnam, and the nation was immersed in the quagmire that the
war in Indochina became. The nature of the war made it impossible to tell
friend from foe, and Americans were killing innocent civilians. It was hard for
the nation to tell who was riding that white horse.
A tragic event did more to
bring the war to a close than the extraordinary number of American war dead. In
the rage and frustration of war, a young lieutenant ordered the massacre and
destruction of an entire village. America, after this glaring event, was,
finally, once again able to determine what was right and wrong, to regain its
moral compass; then a vast majority of the American people demanded an end to
the war.
For a long time, our
presidents and our nation remembered what we learned from that war, and we
stayed out of entanglements in Lebanon, Africa and other hot spots in the world
— and the world and the U.S. were better off because we remembered. For
many years, we insisted that our leaders have an exit strategy, but that has
long been forgotten. Today, polls show that the rest of the world views us as a
greater threat to world peace than terrorists.
Just as in the ’60s, America
is facing another moral dilemma. Having misled the American people to invade
the wrong country for invalid reasons, this administration is unable to admit a
mistake and is unable to understand the cultural differences between America
and Iraq. Revenge and tribalism are an integral part of the culture of the
Iraqi people, and these factors make almost any move by U.S. forces the wrong
move.
It is again hard to tell
friend from foe and a sweep through a town or village in Iraq is likely to
create three or more new terrorists for each insurgent or terrorist captured or
killed. Revenge is a traditional and sacred response against those who harm a
tribal or family member in that part of the world. Each and every day that this
war continues, revenge and tribalism make America less secure. Why, despite the
fact that about 75 percent of the American people are against this war, does it
continue? The short answer is: politics — in both political parties.
In addition to
misunderstanding cultural differences in the Middle East, extremists inside the
Bush administration, in conservative think tanks, and even in many small towns,
try to tell us it is all right to use terror to fight terror; that it’s all
right to torture prisoners; that it’s all right to kidnap suspects and whisk
them off to a country that will really do a good job of torture; that it’s all
right to not abide by and respect the Geneva Convention. All of these ideas are
un-American, and they are not all right. They drag us down to the level of
those we are fighting, and they open the door to the same treatment when
Americans are captured.
What has emerged from two
recently leaked memos and from the recent strident speech by the president in
which he defended torture is a picture of behavior that is reminiscent of the
most tyrannical kings of old Europe and of recent dictators. The memos show
that in 2005, while publicly supporting and signing the Detainee Treatment Act,
which again banned the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners,
President Bush’s justice department secretly issued opinions that allowed
brutal interrogation to continue in defiance of the new law and of existing
prohibitions in U.S. law and international law.
And to what purpose this
backdoor malfeasance? What does it do for America? Army Col. Stuart Herrington,
who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, points out that torture simply is not
a good way to get information. Nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk
without any stress methods, he says. If you beat people up, they’ll tell you
anything they think you want to hear just to get you to stop.
Our nation needs to reject
extremism in all its forms, take the high moral ground, and make sure we are
the ones riding those white horses, and following over 200 years of laws and
traditions.
Ken McCalip is a North
Santa Barbara county native and a former principal/superintendent who holds
bachelor and doctorate degrees in history, cultural geography and law from
various California universities. He can be reached at foxmt.one@verizon.net