Sarah Palin, Asshole of the Day for April 28, 2014
Sarah Palin portrays herself as a straight shooter, who speaks her mind and says what she means, and damn the consequences if you're offended. But that's only part of it-- she often speaks without considering what her statements might mean, or how they might be perceived, and she doesn't care.
"C'mon! Enemies who would utterly annihilate America, they would obviously have information on plots. They carry out jihad. Oh, but you can’t offend them. Can’t make them feel uncomfortable, not even a smidgen," Palin said on Saturday during a speech at the National Rifle Association's "Stand And Fight" rally. "Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists."
During her speech, Palin criticized the Obama administration's national security policy, which she said pokes, "our allies in the eye, calling them adversaries, instead of putting the fear of God in our enemies" according to CBS News.
There's so many things wrong with this, so let us count the ways:
#1 Her mention of "baptism" recalls the ugly history of forced baptisms during the Inquisition and in wars such as the Crusades. The history of Christianity, and of many religions, has many times when people were forced to accept baptism or be killed. To someone outside the US hearing Palin's statement, this reading will be obvious. If Palin were in charge, accept her version of Christianity or die.
Does she mean it this way? Hard to say. If she knew it might be taken this way though, she might not care.
But she fashions herself a leader and political thinker, and often opines about how the US should stand in the world, so it's fair to evaluate her statements for how they will be perceived by America's allies and enemies, and whether it helps or hurts America's standing, and the security of the countries troops stationed overseas.
His use of the word "crusade," said Soheib Bensheikh, Grand Mufti of the mosque in Marseille, France, "was most unfortunate", "It recalled the barbarous and unjust military operations against the Muslim world," by Christian knights, who launched repeated attempts to capture Jerusalem over the course of several hundred years.
The US should not be involved in any crusades, and we certainly don't want our enemies or allies thinking we are, or that we want to be.
#2 She fancies herself a great Christian soldier, and berates people who don't hew to her Christian conservative ideology, but is torture what Jesus would do? Or what He would want done in His name? That sure doesn't sound like the Jesus of the New Testament.
#3 She ignores all those treaties the US has signed saying we don't torture and don't want our troops tortured. The more we violate those treaties, the more likely our enemies will violate it when they capture our troops or citizens. And it doesn't matter whether other nations or terrorists have done it to us, because the point of the treaties is to have international bodies to settle it, and not have an endless series of escalations of abuse.
#4 The US and the Allies tried and executed people for war crimes at Nuremberg and other places after World War II. By so cavalierly saying we should torture our enemies, she's discarding any moral authority the US has. And for what? Some tough talk?
I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear — true or false — if he believes it will relieve his suffering. Often, information provided to stop the torture is deliberately misleading.
Mistreatment of enemy prisoners endangers our own troops, who might someday be held captive. While some enemies, and al-Qaeda surely, will never be bound by the principle of reciprocity, we should have concern for those Americans captured by more conventional enemies, if not in this war then in the next.
But, hearing Palin, it's pretty clear she doesn't care whether it works as a way to get information to stop attacks, she just wants America's enemies to know that we torture. Because torture is an end in itself. Because she thinks it will "put the fear of God in our enemies", as though all our bombs and missiles and drones and armies and planes and everything mean nothing.
I for one am just glad "if Sarah Palin were in charge" never happened, and hope it stays that way.
So, for not only condoning torture but enthusiastically supporting it, regardless of the consequences or perceptions, Sarah Palin is the Asshole of the Day.
It is Sarah Palin's fifth time as Asshole of the Day. Previous wins were for
