Another reality check
Bookworm on Oct 02 2010 at 4:12 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
What America did to Guatemalans in the 1940s is indeed reprehensible. An apology is appropriate. This is how the White House apologized:
President Obama this afternoon spoke with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom to “express his deep regret” and “extend an apology to all those infected” following the revelation that the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a study from 1946 to 1948 in which near 700 prisoners, soldiers and patients with emotional and mental problems were purposefully infected with syphilis.
[snip]
“Obviously, this is shocking,” said White house press secretary Robert Gibbs. “It’s tragic. It’s reprehensible.”
Earlier today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius issued a statement calling the sexually transmitted disease inoculation study “clearly unethical. Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health. We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices.”
My question: does the White House — and, more specifically Obama himself — sound more exercised about this than it/he did about the Christmas Day bomber?
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17 Responses to “Another reality check”
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Simple answer! The Christmas bomber would only kill Americans, not poor little oppressed Third World brown people.
Yes, he does – unsurprisingly.
Is it reprehensible? Yeah, it is – but everybody’s long gone so, y’know: moving right along, as is the way of the world. I’m sorry it happened, but I wasn’t there and didn’t do it, and I suspect (just knowing myself as I do) I’m unlikely to expend much guilt on it. Obama and Gibbs can handle that for all of us.
“I never owned a slave; I never was a slave; I didn’t wander in the desert for forty years; I was never shanghaied; I was never marooned; I was never flogged; I was never abused in a Turkish prison – and neither were you. Get over it.”
– George Carlin
It really is apples and oranges, Book. One is our improper act against others that actually did harm. The other is our incompetence in responding to someone seeking to do harm against us, which harm did not, in the end, occur. He darn well should have been more apologetic about the first than the second. On the other hand, I do agree that the apology is a bit over the top. But liberals love to apologize for America’s sins. And they are good at it, so maybe they should get the job where, as here, an apology really is needed.
It was people like Obama that had such ideas. Government experimentation on people for the “common good”, who does that sound like to you.
Just as it was Obama’s allies that planned and carried out the bomb run.
You’re right, DQ, about the apples and oranges. I just thought more emotional heat should have gone to the oranges, and the Obama administration heaped all the heat on the apples.
Hey, Book, if we agreed on everything our lunches wouldn’t be near as much fun.
Well, there is that, DQ. By the way, folks, the joy of disagreeing with DQ is that it’s the most civil, enlivening discussion you can imagine. I always leave feeling invigorated, rather than excoriated. I often end up agreeing with him but, even if I don’t, I’ve clarified in my own mind what’s important to me about the view I hold. If everyone could disagree as we do, the world would be a better place.
What the heck were doing in Guatemala during those years?? Well, obviously, experimenting when we shouldn’t have been, but why were we in that particular location?
You know…the History Channel had a program about syphilis a number of years ago. It was a _terrible_ disease. While I don’t agree with the lack of ethics in the experimenting that was done on mentally ill people or on blacks in the US – I do understand the drive to do _something_. Still, when you consider those who are now advocating for euthanasia for various “imperfect” people … how is it different? Euthanasia is ok, but experimentation to provide a cure for a scourge of mankind isn’t? Somehow, the ethics seem lacking in logic.
What’s weird is the consistent pitch-perfect tone of all of these apologizings – and their heartfeltness and the sense of a core of true conviction; compared to the total ineptness, cluelessness, corruption, falseness and deceit of almost everything else these people in our Administration do.
That’s probably why the large-scale apologies probably seem so over-the-top. Compared to everything else these people even try to do, the apologies are truly the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth wonders of the world.
suek…
The United Fruit Co. started its business in Guatemala in 1901 harvesting bananas and fruit. Anyway, it changed hands and names and today it’s Chiquita, which probably explains the expression, a Banana Republic.
And the answer to Bookworm’s question: YES. Of course, we’ve all come to expect not just an apology, but a complete and total swipe at America in the same breath.
Here is an article I found to be very tightly constructed and well-worded concerning how to fight the Sharia menace, it’s murderous Jihadist pushers and their liberal apologists. I think it’s got some potent argument points in it concering Book’s question: Does the White House — and, more specifically Obama himself — sound more exercised about this than it/he did about the Christmas Day Bomber?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/sharia_law_the_key_to_linguist.html
Mike…
I agree with you…100%. However the arguments I’ve seen are that the majority of muslims are moderates and don’t adhere to the violent parts of sharia law. The real problem is the jihadists, and they are a violent minority – they say. In fact, the American muslims want to reform islam (never mind _why_ do they want to _reform_ islam) and we should be nice and not scare them away. Kind of like trying to befriend a wild animal. My response to that is that if they’re trying to reform islam, there must be some reason, and we need to support them completely and that includes protecting them from the violent jihadists who will no doubt be trying to kill all of them if they’re trying to change islam from the words of Mohamed.
Mike Gallagher (radio personality) did some numbers yesterday…there are approximately 3 billion muslims in the world. If the jihadists comprise only 5% of that number, we’re talking about something like 3 million (ok…numbers aren’t right – I just did some quick math, and 3 million is more like 3%). That’s a fairly substantial number. Feel free to correct my numbers. I still think it’s a pretty substantial number. We have a right to be concerned about those numbers …to say nothing about the infiltrators who intend to work from within – seemingly peacefully, but with the same goals in mind.
Go forth and make babies, folks!! They intend to overtake us one way or the other!
Suek:
I humbly suggest (meaning that I am going to presume to share my take on this issue with you) that sheer numbers only tell part of the story. Yes, there are (according to Uncle Wiki) about 2.3b nominal “Christians” in the world compared to about 1.9b “Muslims” in the world. Both of these religious affiliations are soft on the inside: the world of Christianity is rotting from the inside out due to secularism, while Dar al Islam is rotten in the middle due to ignorance while imploding at the edges from its contact with the modern world.
My sources tell me that most Muslims at the center are relatively ignorant about their religion and conflate it with culture. This means two things: (1) they are defending Islam as their cultural identity and (2) they are susceptible to persuasion. In fact, there is considerable “secret” conversion taking place within the world of Islam as they are exposed to ideas that challenge their basic assumptions. Having known and grown up with many, many Muslims in my youth, I suggest that most Muslims want to live normal, peaceful lives. Unfortunately, many are cowed into silence by the oppression of their religious leaders but things are happening. A Nigerian bishop’s assistant told me that one of the reasons that the conflict between Islam and Christianity is so violent in Nigeria is that the Imams are trying to quel massive successful secret conversions of their “flocks”. I recall that Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” DVD was a particularly hot black market item among the young in the Gulf States. What is happening in Iran is as much a revolt against Islam as it is a revolt against the Mullahs. What was it that the Iraqis of Najaff cheered when they were liberated by Americans from Saddam? “Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy!”. Sure, the Europeans and the North American Liberal /Left are acting as shameless dhimmis now, but I do believe that in the end they will only embarrass themselves as the cowards they are: our civilization will reassert itself, I am confident.
I promised to write a post about what I noticed about Muslims and Islam in Europe (as well as my take on European anti-semitism) and am working on it.
The extremists, in my view, are fiercely fighting a losing rear-guard action against the modernism of the Western World because it is hastening the collapse of Islam from its very heart.
What many in the West have been trying to do is to present both a non-threatening posture to the great “silent majority” of the world of Islam (in Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, etc.) while taking out the extremist edges recognizing that, in time, the world of Islam will evolve. It became a central part of the policy of the Bush (and I believe Clinton) administrations to avoid a clash of civilizations between the two worlds while blunting the force and message of the jihadis. Osama bin Laden’s stated objective was to bring on a clash of civilizations that would force the world of Islam to reunite and re-assert Islamic values. He’s failing in a big way.
But OK, what if it does become a clash of civilizations? Can 2.3b Muslims really successfully take on the world? Look around the world of Islam and all you see is a massive fail. They have created nothing. They can only trade their natural resources for goods, services and technologies created by Dar al Harb (the world outside the world of Islam), they can’t create their own. Islam has nothing to offer its adherents except poverty, anger and exploitation. They can’t keep it secret anymore in the world of the internet. If civilizations do clash, it will be American, European and Asian soldiers fighting Muslim soldiers. To borrow a leaf from Ymar, how does that translate into fighting efficiency and body counts?
In Iraq and Afghanistan, from what I have been able to put together, the kill ratio of Westerners to Muslims has been roughly 15-20 dead Jihadi fighters for every dead Western soldier. This is for historical and cultural reasons that have been very eloquently expressed by Victor Davis Hanson [ http://www.amazon.com/Why-West-Has-Won-Carnage/dp/0571216404 ]. Osama bin Laden is fighting some very, very bad odds.
I so hope you’re right, Danny. I also hope that the trend you see is one that gains enough adherents to reach a tipping point before it’s too late.
Book, I am reminded of a thought that one of the Japanese government “negotiators” recalled having had as he stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay in 1945. Looking at all the flags of the allied nations on the deck, he thought (I paraphrase) “How could we ever have believed that we could defeat the world?”.
Islam can’t win. Too many people (not just Libs and Lefties) would have to buy into failure.
The easiest way to win a war is to get your enemies to fight themselves. That remains true. Nothing has changed in the realm of warfare on matters of principle.
They have created nothing. They can only trade their natural resources for goods, services and technologies created by Dar al Harb (the world outside the world of Islam), they can’t create their own. Islam has nothing to offer its adherents except poverty, anger and exploitation.
If they have nothing to offer except anger, then they have nothing to lose either. As to the numbers, what does it matter if they’re only 1 million if the West is willing to capitulate and fold from fear and threats. The looming question is: How will the West and the rest deal with immigration. Faisal Shahzed took an empty oath last year. He did not come from poverty or exploitation. We are joined at the political hip of the UN and all of its ugly affiliations (UN HRC).
In the words of Larry, the Cable Guy – git’er done. The road to the 21st century is unpaved for a good majority of Muslims. Unless and until the Arab world invests in asphalt, metaphorically speaking, it’s going to be a rough ride.