The Saturday, September 16, opinion page of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel is a study in contrasts. On the one hand is an
essay by Aslam Abdullah, a leading American Muslim, who flatly rejects the violent fanatics who claim to operate in the name of his religion. Far from being Muslims, he says, they are "anti-divine and anti-human" cowards who prey on "Muslim youth and children who are victims of despotism, poverty, and ignorance." "You are not us," he says. No love lost there.
On the other hand is Bill O'Reilly who trivializes torture in order to defend it and ridicules the notion that the ends do not justify the means. For Mr. O'Reilly, as long as we torture for the right reasons, all is well, and our moral purity and identity are intact. Excuse me, but isn't that the case that the terrorists make to justify their actions?
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If Mr. O'Reilly had taken a principled stand like Mr. Abdullah, he would have written a very different article. He would have rejected torture being performed to advance the cause of America. He would have called out as
cowards those who hide not in caves but behind official government secrecy to authorize and order cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and torture in our name. He might have used his talent for ridicule by asking, "Who would Jesus torture?", instead of targeting those who reject torture. He might have said to those to torture in our name, "You are not us."
But then that would not have been an article by Bill O'Reilly, who, with the Bush Administration, conceives of "victory" as does a schoolyard bully. Good thing there are people around like Aslam Abdullah and our own Valtin who are not cowed by the bullying of their self-proclaimed champions.