Disturbing parallels.


---
The 'American Inquisition'

By James Reston Jr.Tue Apr 18, 6:57 AM ET

Through the mist of time, the Spanish Inquisition has come down to us as
one of the most barbarous periods in all of history. Its viciousness
peaked in the late 15th century, during the reign of the messianic
"Catholic kings," Ferdinand and Isabella.

Paranoia gripped Spanish society as the Inquisition coincided with a
Christian war against the Muslims of southern Spain. Clandestine trials,
secret prisons, rampant eavesdropping, torture, desecration of Islam's
holy books, and gruesome public executions created an atmosphere of
pervasive terror. Suspects were assumed to be guilty, with no recourse
to a defense, to a jury, or to a legitimate court.

In the chaos now roiling the Western world, does any of this sound
familiar?

It is time to ask whether the United States, with some of these same
touchstones, is entering a period of its own peculiar Inquisition. Of
course, there are no burning places for heretics in America now. No
Tomás de Torquemada presides over this period of internal anxiety and
investigation.

But the word, inquisition, is not exclusive to Spain in the Middle Ages.
It is a useful term for historians to characterize phases of history
that are distinguished by religious intolerance, by Christian holy war
and Islamic jihad, by racial profiling and xenophobia, by show trials,
and by snooping of secret police.

Paranoia abounds

This country, too, is seized with collective paranoia. President Bush
knows, as Ferdinand, Isabella and Torquemada knew, that constant
warnings about secret terrorists are a powerful deterrent to dissent and
a useful tool for consolidating political power.

Bush, like his Spanish precursors, presses for a unity of faith and a
credo of purification. His faith mixes the secular and the spiritual.
Its hallmarks are Jeffersonian democracy for all the world,
unquestioning patriotism and revitalized Christianity. Unbelievers in
this holy trinity are to be ferreted out. Not to subscribe to the
methods in the war on terrorism is not so much dissent as heresy.

The American Inquisition began on Sept. 16, 2001, five days after the
monstrous attack, when Bush proclaimed his "crusade." That was the
defining moment for this era of U.S. history.

In the years since, Bush has demonstrated all the passion and
single-mindedness of King Ferdinand. The American secret police force is
not called the Holy Brotherhood as it was in 1492, for today's
brotherhood is more electronic than human. On Capitol Hill, Cabinet
members, past and present, call search warrants obsolete. Beware. We are
all "mined" for our "data."

How different is this really from the spying that went on in the Spanish
Inquisition? Suspect words or acts do not change that much with time. In
Inquisitional Spain, neighbors were supposed to report a suspicious
neighbor to the Holy Office. Now, symbolic words or actions are detected
electronically.

In the past few months, Americans have been treated to the extraordinary
spectacle of a U.S. president arguing for torture in the lofty
staterooms of the U.S. government. Memos float around his Department of
Defense, stressing that U.S. interrogators should cease their
persecution if their victims come close to "organ failure." The world
wants to know what is going on in the star chambers of secret U.S.
prisons around the world. The U.S. administration scoffs. The Geneva
Conventions are called quaint, and the court in The Hague, Netherlands,
cannot touch us. Standards for war crimes and crimes against humanity
are for non-Americans.

Forms of torture

For the historian, symbolic acts such as torture often define an era,
and the American brand of torture has a particularly medieval quality.
"Waterboarding," as it is called (as if it were a sport like
surfboarding or skateboarding), uses cellophane instead of gauze with
water to subject the suspect to near drowning and suffocation. So today
this is called an "enhanced" technique of interrogation. But the pitcher
and gauze were just as effective in the 15th century. The intent is
really no different from that of Torquemada's interrogators: to make the
subject talk even though that talk might be drivel.

It is not surprising that a leader, who believes that his Christian God
chose him to be president at this moment in history and that his
Almighty speaks directly to him, should preside over this American
Inquisition. Bush's messianic bent came to light vividly in June 2003,
when he announced that his God had inspired him to go fight those
terrorists and to end the tyranny in Iraq. What, one wonders, is his God
telling him now about the chaos?

This supposed pipeline to heaven is, of course, not new for kings and
potentates. On his deathbed in 1516, King Ferdinand told his minions
that he could not die yet: God had told him that he would move on from
the conquest of Granada to lead a great crusade that would recapture
Jerusalem. The messianic impulse is commonplace in history.

Now, we are just a few years into the Iraq era. The situation is getting
worse, and there is no end in sight. When this nightmare ends, years of
self-examination are sure to follow as happened after the Vietnam
disaster. The Iraq syndrome will be lengthy. In the meantime, American
Inquisition takes root. It is more hard-edged and mean-spirited than the
Vietnam crackdown ... for one reason.

Though Bush's explanations for his wayward adventure may constantly
change, though the enterprise may show itself to be a military and moral
catastrophe of historic proportions, this American leader and his circle
of illuminati are utterly convinced of their righteousness. Toward their
detractors they misappropriate, like inquisitors before them, the verse
of John 15:6:

"If any abide not in me, he should be cast forth as a branch and shall
wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he
shall burn."

James Reston Jr. is the author ofDogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition,
and the Defeat of the Moors.


---
http://tinyurl.com/m7stc
--
John Hachmann aa #1782

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
atrocities"
-Voltaire

Contact - Throw a .net over the .com

Disturbing parallels.

The 'American Inquisition'

By James Reston Jr.Tue Apr 18, 6:57 AM ET

Through the mist of time, the Spanish Inquisition has come down to us as
one of the most barbarous periods in all of history. Its viciousness
peaked in the late 15th century, during the reign of the messianic
"Catholic kings," Ferdinand and Isabella.

Paranoia gripped Spanish society as the Inquisition coincided with a
Christian war against the Muslims of southern Spain. Clandestine trials,
secret prisons, rampant eavesdropping, torture, desecration of Islam's
holy books, and gruesome public executions created an atmosphere of
pervasive terror. Suspects were assumed to be guilty, with no recourse
to a defense, to a jury, or to a legitimate court.

In the chaos now roiling the Western world, does any of this sound
familiar?

It is time to ask whether the United States, with some of these same
touchstones, is entering a period of its own peculiar Inquisition. Of
course, there are no burning places for heretics in America now. No
Tomás de Torquemada presides over this period of internal anxiety and
investigation.

But the word, inquisition, is not exclusive to Spain in the Middle Ages.
It is a useful term for historians to characterize phases of history
that are distinguished by religious intolerance, by Christian holy war
and Islamic jihad, by racial profiling and xenophobia, by show trials,
and by snooping of secret police.

Paranoia abounds

This country, too, is seized with collective paranoia. President Bush
knows, as Ferdinand, Isabella and Torquemada knew, that constant
warnings about secret terrorists are a powerful deterrent to dissent and
a useful tool for consolidating political power.

Bush, like his Spanish precursors, presses for a unity of faith and a
credo of purification. His faith mixes the secular and the spiritual.
Its hallmarks are Jeffersonian democracy for all the world,
unquestioning patriotism and revitalized Christianity. Unbelievers in
this holy trinity are to be ferreted out. Not to subscribe to the
methods in the war on terrorism is not so much dissent as heresy.

The American Inquisition began on Sept. 16, 2001, five days after the
monstrous attack, when Bush proclaimed his "crusade." That was the
defining moment for this era of U.S. history.

In the years since, Bush has demonstrated all the passion and
single-mindedness of King Ferdinand. The American secret police force is
not called the Holy Brotherhood as it was in 1492, for today's
brotherhood is more electronic than human. On Capitol Hill, Cabinet
members, past and present, call search warrants obsolete. Beware. We are
all "mined" for our "data."

How different is this really from the spying that went on in the Spanish
Inquisition? Suspect words or acts do not change that much with time. In
Inquisitional Spain, neighbors were supposed to report a suspicious
neighbor to the Holy Office. Now, symbolic words or actions are detected
electronically.

In the past few months, Americans have been treated to the extraordinary
spectacle of a U.S. president arguing for torture in the lofty
staterooms of the U.S. government. Memos float around his Department of
Defense, stressing that U.S. interrogators should cease their
persecution if their victims come close to "organ failure." The world
wants to know what is going on in the star chambers of secret U.S.
prisons around the world. The U.S. administration scoffs. The Geneva
Conventions are called quaint, and the court in The Hague, Netherlands,
cannot touch us. Standards for war crimes and crimes against humanity
are for non-Americans.

Forms of torture

For the historian, symbolic acts such as torture often define an era,
and the American brand of torture has a particularly medieval quality.
"Waterboarding," as it is called (as if it were a sport like
surfboarding or skateboarding), uses cellophane instead of gauze with
water to subject the suspect to near drowning and suffocation. So today
this is called an "enhanced" technique of interrogation. But the pitcher
and gauze were just as effective in the 15th century. The intent is
really no different from that of Torquemada's interrogators: to make the
subject talk even though that talk might be drivel.

It is not surprising that a leader, who believes that his Christian God
chose him to be president at this moment in history and that his
Almighty speaks directly to him, should preside over this American
Inquisition. Bush's messianic bent came to light vividly in June 2003,
when he announced that his God had inspired him to go fight those
terrorists and to end the tyranny in Iraq. What, one wonders, is his God
telling him now about the chaos?

This supposed pipeline to heaven is, of course, not new for kings and
potentates. On his deathbed in 1516, King Ferdinand told his minions
that he could not die yet: God had told him that he would move on from
the conquest of Granada to lead a great crusade that would recapture
Jerusalem. The messianic impulse is commonplace in history.

Now, we are just a few years into the Iraq era. The situation is getting
worse, and there is no end in sight. When this nightmare ends, years of
self-examination are sure to follow as happened after the Vietnam
disaster. The Iraq syndrome will be lengthy. In the meantime, American
Inquisition takes root. It is more hard-edged and mean-spirited than the
Vietnam crackdown ... for one reason.

Though Bush's explanations for his wayward adventure may constantly
change, though the enterprise may show itself to be a military and moral
catastrophe of historic proportions, this American leader and his circle
of illuminati are utterly convinced of their righteousness. Toward their
detractors they misappropriate, like inquisitors before them, the verse
of John 15:6:

"If any abide not in me, he should be cast forth as a branch and shall
wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he
shall burn."

James Reston Jr. is the author ofDogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition,
and the Defeat of the Moors.


---
http://tinyurl.com/m7stc