Another Poisonous Generation Narcissus Break with our Tradition

A reader writes:

Hi,

I thought y’all might find this interesting, either professionally or personally.

One of the history professors here at Franciscan. Dr. Robert Doyle, has just published a pretty comprehensive survey of the US’s treatment of prisoners of war, internees, detainees, etc. It’s called “The Enemy in Our Hands: America’s Treatment of Prisoners of War From the Revolution to the War on Terror.”

He traces the history of our use of military commissions, arrest and treatment of political prisoners, and marks out how our current treatment of detainees breaks from centuries of attempting to always apply the Golden Rule to enemy prisoners of war.

Some of you will be interested to know he’s a Vietnam vet–he served
in the Navy on the Steinaker and on land as an intelligence officer.
Others will be interested in his work as historical and technical consultant on the movie “Hart’s War” with Bruce Willis.

Anyway–it’s an interesting book, and really relevant to all the debates about treatment of prisoners and appropriate methods.

More bad news for plump torture enablers like Marc Thiessen and torture administrators like Dick “Other Priorities” Cheney. The real reason we became a Torture Regime under Bush is not that we face “an enemy like no other” but because we Baby Boomers of whom W is archetypal, once again betrayed what is healthy and sane in our culture for a quick, easy, selfish and cowardly moral shortcut–as is our custom.