Open Up and Let Me In - Transparency in the War on Terror

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.annointedfig.com/open-up-and-let-me-in-transparency-in-the-war-on-terror/)
Is there room for total disclosure when the stakes are this high? Is this the answer to the conflict, or merely more fuel for the fire?

We need openness, communication...don't we?  How are we to build a relationship -- or, for that matter, anything of value -- on lies?

[caption id="attachment_349" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Oh, honey, you lost weight!"][/caption]

But if you're a guy, and your girl has scrounged up on a new 1st anniversary dress, and you think it makes her butt look like it's grown a Volkswagen Beetle, will you tell her?  What if you're a wife, and your mother-in-law is a preachy twit who only flies in once a year for your daughter's birthday, are you going to corner her sniffing roses in your slightly overgrown backyard and make her SEE she just ain't welcome?

No, certainly, these are unfair questions to ask.  We MUST have transparency, so you would be brutally honest... NOT!   Well, some of us might -- and some wouldn't even entertain the notion.  But the point is, if we look one step ahead of where we are, of what we might poised on the brink of, it has a potential of changing our course.  Think before you step, right?

So, SHOULD we think before opening a can of wildly copulating worms that is Gitmo / Abu Ghraib / put-in-your-US-concentration-camp-of-choice?  Should we do some private housecleaning of those ultimately responsible for the failed policies while simply letting the detainees go, providing them and their families with lifetime psychiatric help (THAT ought to come out a doozy), and shelling out a hefty hush-hush fee.  Call it pain and suffering comp.  All politically correct and, mostly, no one the wiser.

See, I received a few thought-provoking comments yesterday, and the tattletale that I am, I can't wait to share them with the class.

First feedback...well, I guess, I already did.  See, can't keep my mouth shut, what did I tell you?  Certain someone I spoke to claims that the less visibility the ghost detainees now enjoy, the more peace the coming few years are liable to bring.  Why give anyone even more ideas, they say?  Why breed discontent, mistrust, outright hatred for a country that did already switch its course?  Why facilitate the birthing of a new generation of hotheads (from either end of political spectrum) by pointlessly publicizing the abuse some don't believe in -- and others would be willing to die for and kill to avenge?  Shouldn't we let sleeping dogs lie while not just avowing, but also demonstrating the resolve in our current intentions?

To which my gut reaction was - ...but the honesty, the change, the promises we accepted -- and made, the spirit of Democracy, the due process, the...   However, and I emphasize, that was my GUT reaction.  Just, unfortunately, as it had been the gut reactions of those that actually instituted the horrors.  Did they THINK of what would be lying ahead, would the waterboarding have ever made to the very top of the CNN-FOX-HUFFINGTON POST Billboards?

When questioned by BBC Hardtalk's Tim Sebastian on whether he was prepared to blow himself up in Palestine, Dr. Azzam Tamimi (spokesman for Muslim Association of Britain [MAB] and head of London's Institute of Islamic Political Thought) replied: "If I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I would do it. Why not?" What scares me is hundreds, even thousands, with the similar lines of thought.  We did make sure to provide plenty of fuel to the whole "Westerners are EEEEEVIL" selling point without dipping into our can of worms.  Now, out of those thousands, most will continue sitting on their hands and grouch, something like "if I could do this, and this, and that, oh, I would, sure, you can believe it, but me, I can't, I'm too important, I'm needed too much, so, you know, I just can't.  But I can sure cheer from the sidelines".

Unfortunately, for every hundred VIPs, there will be one, or two, or...well, I guess the ultimate harvest will depend on just how well we'll fertilize that ground...who will NOT stumble through the stock response.  They will just run for political office and become the new Ismail Haniyeh, an embattled ex-Prime Minister of Palestine Authority still exercising prime ministerial authority in the Gaza Strip.  Or they can just pick up a pilot's license and fly a plane at...well, sky literally is the limit.  Or they can far less glamorously blow themselves up and take a couple of kids, a few kosher-chicken lugging grandmas, and a score of their own brothers in faith making their living on the infidel market right along with them.

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And so, it brings me right back to that Restaurant at the End of the Universe.  One step, and the gameworld changes.  Did people in power think, truly think of what their decisions may usher?  Not even will, MAY.  And isn't the very possibility already too much?  Or did they react -- out of the very best, although misguided, intentions, greed, our countrywide certainty that because it suits us, it surely is on the side of the angels?

And if react they did, do we -- now, picking our tattered pride out of the ashes of global firestorms that is our failing economy, mind-boggling deficit, shaky relations with the famished Russian bear, Al Qaeda leaders still roaming free and thus handily winning our self-styled war on terror -- have the luxury of doing the same?

Crickets chirping.  An empty beggar's cup.

Anyone, please, anyone, throw your 2 cents in?  Me, I'm all out.

But I do have a new piece of information thanks to another responder that has given me hope as nothing had in quite a while.

You see, I just found out about Ed Husain, otherwise known as Ghaffar Hussain, a British national, a former radical Islamist, and now -- a head of Quilliam Foundation, a respected UK think tank seeking to combat extremism (which it calls a terrorism precursor) and made up of...no, can't say it better than it had itself, so, I'll just let it introduce itself, shall I?  "...our founders are former leading ideologues of UK-based extremist Islamist organizations – organizations that are still active today".  So, how d'you like them apples?

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality is what he blames for the rise and, indeed, continued existence of radical Islamism. By having a  "foe in western capitalism, which it can conveniently blame for all of the world's ills", it's flourishing -- and picking up support in the unlikeliest places.  This is basically a gist of the man's own op-ed piece.

A similar reasoning comes through loud and clear in Husain's latest interview with Salon's Yassin Musharbash and highlights, to me, anyway, that there is in fact a solution other than the escalating war on terror -- or the encroaching Jew-loving West, or whatever it is the ideologues from either side will undoubtedly call it.  But before the Koran, and Bible, and Torah-justified healing can begin, must there be a blanket blank slate or a no-holds-barred, no-relationship-is-pure-without-one, uncompromising disclosure?

[caption id="attachment_353" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Stop pestering me! Gotta assertain my position."][/caption]

There are certainly pros and cons for either path, opinions are like holes stuffed with multitude of donkeys, but, hey, at least, in this case, I CAN BE SURE mine don't stink - for now, I just don't think I'm ready to have one.