REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Forgiveness or Enabling?

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Sunday, January 23, 2011 10:27
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VIEWED: 2759
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Friday, January 21, 2011 9:15 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Hello,

I just heard this thought-provoking quote:

"He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done."

Apparently said by Leonardo Da Vinci

This raises a question in my mind... when does forgiveness become enabling behavior? When should we feel compelled to punish, and when is it acceptable or beneficial to forgive?

--Anthony



Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 2:46 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


*shrug*

Punish until they learn, then forgive?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 3:20 AM

CANTTAKESKY


Quote:

Originally posted by AnthonyT:
"He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done."

It depends on how you define evil.

Evil is usually a label you place on your enemy, like "poo-poo head." Nazi Germany was evil. Vietcong and communists were evil. Imperial Japan was evil. Now Islamic terrorists are evil.

I don't think it is a useful label. It leads to things like the Inquisition and wars and the Guantanamo Detention Center and prisons. The "punishing evil" mentality has never led to anything good that I can think of.

I would rather look at why people are suffering. Then fix it.

Let's take a look at an example of what *I* might consider evil. Epidemic rape in the DR Congo. Why does it occur? Rape was implemented as a weapon of war for terrorizing local populations into submitting to foreign control. Now it has become a routine expression of local hopelessness, displaced revenge, and sadism--like an abused kid torturing puppies.

The first thing to fix is to not let it occur. Potential victims and former victims need to have a viable means of self-defense. Teach the puppies to bite, fight back, run away and get help from a bigger dog, whatever. This is not punishment. It is simply "when someone shoots you, you shoot them right back."

Then you do the same thing with the foreign pillagers. You start off with an area with no natural resources that they don't care about, and you defend it. Then you expand that area to include other populations who want to join your alliance. And you defend it. Using the slippery slope/slippery step principle, you slide your way back to regain sovereign control over your own village, town, city, county, state.

Once you've kicked the foreigners out, it is a matter of rebuilding your society so people have hope and dignity again.


Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 4:54 AM

DREAMTROVE


Maybe I've been fremmed, but I would say as I did in his thread "Forgiving before you have proof of reconciliation."

But I can't punish Nazi Germany because that's collective punishment, like punishing Israel. Certain people in the German command structure and the much of the SS, had committed acts of evil, on an individual level. That's why we need wikileaks, so we can have an account of individual responsibility.

I chose "reconciliation" because one man's evil is another man's cultural difference. Remember in the middle ages when heresy, or not being christian, or catholic, or anglican, was considered "evil." In the middle east, something very similar is going on. We all have our cultural values, so it's easy for us to see that those people are not evil, but we can't see biases within our own culture, that identify evils, and are prepared to punish them. What about drug dealers. Are they evil? I remember reading that 60% of all illegal drug traffic was in medicine, not recreational drugs. But what if they are recreational? Lots of drugs that are banned are less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Some of even the schedule one drugs are less dangerous than Pepsi or KFC.

Every society is going to make judgment calls, and then define evil. Reconciliation is when the evildoer and the accuser agree "we don't do that." For whatever reason.

So, back to Nazis. We say "you can't have a jewless society, that's evil." Okay, the US has freedom of religion, most of the world doesn't. Nazis say "Jews are evil." If there had been a reconciliation there, rather than a cycle of rejection and punishment, the holocaust could have been avoided. Our solution did not stop the catastrophe.

So, yes, sure, there are probably moral absolutes. You can't kill people. But even so, we kill lots and lots of people, so maybe you could never get everyone to agree to that. I've thought before if everyone in a society had the right to leave, then abuses would be impossible, but I appear to be wrong. Abuses are all over America. Also, I see a snag: If someone has military secrets capable of enabling your enemy to slaughter you, you might not want him to leave.

So, I think you forgive when the wrongdoer has convinced you that he respects the rules of your society, but I don't think you have to forget. I wouldn't carry this to the individual citizenry, because the whole "list" business also smacks of holocaust to me. It would have been a lot harder to round up all the jews if you didn't have a handy list of all the jews.

But for positions of power, I think it's okay to say "you guys robbed the national treasury, we're not putting you back into the treasury dept."

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 7:42 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Very thought-provoking, Tony, and on which hubby and I constantly disagree.

The questions assumes dualities, though, which I don't think are true. The first, as CTS so eloquently pointed out, is the issue of "evil"; as in "good and evil". People do things that are outside of cultural norms. One culture's norm is another culture's evil. But assuming that WE know what "evil" is (in our culture, anyway) I think the notion of "evil" is counterproductive. The sources of aberrant behavior are various, none of them IMHO classify as "evil".

Which brings me to my second point: "Punishment". The way the question is posed, there are only two choices: punish or forgive. Punishment usually involves the expression of disapproval by a morally superior being or agency, along with the imposition of pain or restriction. The way it is applied in the USA, it is synonymous with "justice" which is often a form of "vengeance", or righteous anger and directed violence, often brought about by fear. "Forgiveness" often means "do nothing".

I guess I believe there is a third way: Try to figure out what caused the behavior in the first place, and fix it if possible or isolate it if not possible. Take Loughner for example. You can punish him all you want, he's still gonna be crazy. If you look at many of our jailed criminals, they've been in and out of jail a few times already. What did "punishment" do? Did it teach them to change their behavior? Most of our death row criminals are brain damaged in some way; often as a result of being beaten as a child.

Look at our common street criminal. He lives in a society which sends very very confusing messages: Be entrepreneurial. But don't steal. Unless you're really really successful at hiding your theft, in which case you can get away with anything at all.

Looking at the child, how do you get them to do (or not do) what they're supposed to do (or not do)? Well, you can yell at them, beat them, or otherwise intimidate them into "behaving", or you can "consequate" behavior in a non-violent and logical way: You're not ready for school? Then you go in your pajamas.

We have the highest violence rate in the industrialized world AND the highest incarceration rate AND the highest percentage of religious believers. Punishment by a morally superior group CLEARLY ISN'T WORKING. I think we need to take a more cold-blooded look at causes and effects, not evil and punishment.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 9:52 AM

HKCAVALIER


(ETA: Hey, what's going on? This is the second post I've written and lost entirely when I clicked "Post My Response!" Beyond frustrating. Henceforth, I'll be copying my posts before posting, just in case this happens again. Yet another thing disinclining me to post on this board. Grr. Argh. Reconstruction in 3, 2, 1...)

(Ack! It happened again! But I saved my post this time.)

Forgiveness is a method of freeing one's own soul from the past, irrespective of the actions of others. It's not just a string of words, but a personal transformation. Time and again in my work, I find that the person we most need to forgive is ourselves. No retribution received at the hands of another is as excruciating, as relentless, as unreasoningly sadistic, as the retribution we can work upon ourselves every minute of every day for the rest of our lives. We are all of us our own captives. Without forgiveness, our souls wither. Without self-forgiveness, forgiving others is mere politeness.

Punishment is a form of misplaced aggression that inhibits the punisher's own healing by cutting her off from the grieving process. Punishment perpetuates a zero sum dualism, the ultimate purpose of which is to promote the myth that violence is a form of social discourse, a teaching tool, and a benefit to its victim. In short, that it has a rightful place in society and there are those who are meant to dish it out and those who are meant to take it. Punishment is merely the perceived legitimacy of violence.

Violence teaches nothing but violence. The victim of punishment who "learns" to control his own violence out of fear of punishment has merely internalized it, and created himself as a ticking time-bomb of compulsive cruelty--one way or another, it'll find its way out again. More often than not, he learns simply to commit his violence in secret, or to direct it "down river," as it were, toward individuals as worthless as himself. All too often, Mr. Time-bomb ends up hurting the very people he loves the most.

The greatest evil I know is violence committed against an enemy wholly in your power. So, to my mind, punishment IS evil, by definition.

Violence and containment are actions a moral human being takes only to avoid certain tragedy. In that sense it is a kind of triage. As a responsible adult human being, one must choose in the midst of a crisis, with limited resources, whom to protect and whom to abandon to fate. It's the most horrendous decision a person can make and I'd wish it upon no one.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 10:16 AM

BYTEMITE


There's been some board glitches recently. The workaround I've found is to go to the Fireflyfans beta and post there if fireflyfans repeatedly doesn't submit your posts.

Usually it starts to work after that. I'm not sure why.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 10:34 AM

WHOZIT


If you're not part of the solution then you're part of the problem - Don't know who said that

Keith Olbermann was fired because he was part of the stupid.....and he's stupid

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 11:20 AM

CANTTAKESKY


Quote:

Originally posted by HKCavalier:
(ETA: Hey, what's going on? This is the second post I've written and lost entirely when I clicked "Post My Response!"

Since I post here a lot, I've noticed a pattern. This is based only on my experience, so I don't know how generalizable it is. The glitch appears to happen only with long "Reply with Quotes" posts, but not short ones, and not with "Reply" posts.

After I post, if the post doesn't show up, I double check the original thread in a second browser tab. If my post isn't there, I click on "Reply" and copy and paste from my first browser tab. That always seems to work.

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 11:24 AM

CANTTAKESKY


Quote:

Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Punishment is merely the perceived legitimacy of violence.

The greatest evil I know is violence committed against an enemy wholly in your power.

Those two sentences are going into my archive of Awesome Quotations from RWED.



Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 12:16 PM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.


I think it's erroneous to pair 'punishment' and 'violence.' The best sorts of punishments are not violent. In my opinion, since violence is wrong, it really takes away from getting the point across. If you're thinking that those punishing you are wrong, you aren't going to take a lesson away from it.
For most human beings, a period of shunning or isolation will motivate them to avoid such things in the future. We're social creatures. Time out works on kids. Shunning used to be a common punishment. Prison no doubt arose from this concept, but it's less effective because it can still be a social situation, albeit an unhealthy one. Even there, the greatest punishment is still solitary confinement, though I think they sometimes take it to insanity-inducing extremes.
As for the middle-age concept of "evil" being not going to church... well, that didn't mean that it was evil. Some people have a very irrational or emotional outlook on evil that is often over the top. The core tenants of most laws and belief systems come from human empathy and the desire to eliminate suffering, and those are what should be given attention, I think. Failing to go to church doesn't really cause a lot of suffering. Stealing someone's dinner can certainly cause their suffering, and is wrong if not completely evil. Torturing and depriving someone of food until they're driven to steal someone else's dinner might be evil. Those sorts of things are what should be addressed. Sometimes punishment is part of that, though finding the root of the problem and addressing that will often bring greater change.
I am personally not a very forgiving person. I only forgive wrongs if they've been addressed and I can be relatively assured that they won't be repeated. I've always been of the opinion that forgiveness without such assurance is just an invitation to a rerun. On the other hand, I don't firebomb anyone's home to punish them. Consequences arise from all things, often in the form of being ignored or expelled from a society or organization, sometimes in more extreme forms. I don't think violent punishment could ever be more effective than that.


I do not need the written code of a spiritual belief to act like a decent human being.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 12:30 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


One of the more interesting experiences I had last year was to hear and meet Alby Sachs, a former opponent of Aparteid in South Africa, and who went on to be instrumental in setting up the Truth and Reconicliation Commission there. He was truly inspirational.

Quote:

Albie Sachs is not here to lecture us on our human rights shortcomings. The South African resistance lawyer who fought apartheid, who lost an arm when the regime blew up his car, who shook the hand of one of the assassination plotters – and who helped Nelson Mandela build a modern democracy – will not presume to tell Australia how to treat its indigenous population.

Nor will he tell Julia Gillard to allow gay marriage, even though South Africa's Constitutional Court, from which Mr Sachs retired as a judge last year, did that five years ago.

At 75, Mr Sachs can only tell his story and that of South Africa's rapid transformation, as he did last night while delivering the annual Hal Wootten lecture for the University of NSW law faculty, which awarded him an honorary degree.
Advertisement: Story continues below

In the mid-1990s, a man called Henri arrived at Mr Sachs's chambers. A military man, Henri was going to testify to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He had taken photos of Mr Sachs and prepared a dossier for the bombers who blew up his car in 1988 in Mozambique, where the lawyer had spent years in exile after two long stints in solitary confinement in South Africa. Mr Sachs survived the bombing but lost his right arm and the sight in one eye.

He told Henri he could not shake his hand. He urged him to go and tell the truth, to "do something for South Africa and then perhaps we can meet again". Nine months later, at a party in Johannesburg, a voice called out: "Hello, Albie." It was Henri, who had indeed told the truth. Mr Sachs extended his left hand. Henri went home "and cried for two weeks", Mr Sachs writes in his latest book, The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law, which the former Labor minister Bob Debus will launch in Sydney tonight.

Mr Sachs did not oppose Henri's application for amnesty from prosecution. It is not that he forgave him.

"The word forgiveness doesn't capture it," Mr Sachs told the Herald. "As if he could say, 'Sorry, I blew off your arm.' He couldn't say that. And this idea that I can say, 'I forgive thee, I forgive thee,' it's not part of my philosophy. For me, something far more affirmative was happening. This instrument of the state, of apartheid, suddenly became this guy, Henri. Our country is made up of Henris and Albies."

When recovering in hospital, Mr Sachs recalls, a note arrived promising revenge against the bombers. "And I'm thinking, what are they going to do? Cut off their arms? Blind them? What kind of country will that be? They blew us up. They locked us up. They tortured us with sleep-deprivation. Now it's our turn."

Mr Sachs instead got "soft vengeance". It came in the form of democracy; one person, one vote, no matter their colour. It is a theme he discusses in an earlier book, the award-winning Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter.

Despite "huge" inequalities remaining in South Africa, he is confident about its future because of three strong foundations: a strong constitution rooted in its own history and culture; an open society that speaks its mind, and a robust and growing economy.




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Saturday, January 22, 2011 1:33 PM

DREAMTROVE


PR, I think Chris' drink Jensen video made fhe society of violence point very well.


HK

The glitch happens on the old site. Copy your post to the clipboard if you have to

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 4:51 PM

FREMDFIRMA



I disagree, HKCav, rare that it is between us.

Forgiveness when there is no hope of rehabilitation, no evidence of any kind of regret, nor any realistic chance of them not doing it again *IS* enabling it.

On a national scale, Palestine, Settlements - and how many times are we gonna take "Oh no, we'll never do it again, never ever, hee hee hee!" before we finally stop forgiving and enabling ?

On a personal, if you have someone at hand who is not only completely unrepentant, but pissed at you for calling them to heel, who doesn't even think what they did was WRONG - and either tries to sell you a laughable and OBVIOUSLY bullshit contrition, or flatly tells you to your face they mean to do that and worse, all over again...

It's time for a fucking bullet, I'm sorry, but that's the way I feel.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 8:17 PM

HKCAVALIER


Frem,

I covered that under triage, I think. My personal forgiveness has nothing to do with assessing the threat a perpetrator poses to myself or those I care about. You seem rather wedded to this idea that killing another person must be a passionate act of hatred/revenge/punishment. I don't think so. I know I could kill someone, but I also know it would be the worst fucking day of my life.

If the perp poses a threat, then I must deal with it, regardless of my personal feelings, no? To do otherwise would be irresponsible.

I don't frankly understand why folks equate forgiveness with irresponsibility. Well, I kinda suspect that it comes out of a knee-jerk fear of the idea of "forgiveness"--like someone's taking their toys (i.e.: vengeful fantasies) away. Forgiveness is for wimps and masochists! Yeah, that's the ticket!

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011 9:59 PM

PRETTYXPISTOL


Quote:

Originally posted by AnthonyT:
This raises a question in my mind... when does forgiveness become enabling behavior? When should we feel compelled to punish, and when is it acceptable or beneficial to forgive?

--Anthony


Warning this is a bit long.

Forgiveness is a touchy subject for me so I’ll try to explain to the best of my ability. I don’t pretend to this moral upstanding citizen. I have lived a life of self destruction for the past 8 years of my life meaning I have cheated, lied, stolen, and backstabbed people and I’m not proud of it. I’m actually ashamed of it so I don’t open up to people about it. I’m a very complex individual and most people judge me and don’t even bother trying to understand.

With me, because of my past or my personality I really don’t know, I don’t believe in forgiveness. I believe that when you mess up its game over. I have only forgiven two people in my live, my ex sister in law for cheating on my brother and marrying his best friend and my soon to be ex husband. I believe with forgiveness it’s a two way straight. If I mess up, I don’t expect you to forgive me and if you mess up, don’t except me to forgive you. I believe there are some things that are forgivable such as breaking my favorite plate, saying something mean to me, etc. Then there are things that aren’t such as sleeping with my boyfriend, spreading gossip, etc. It’s your feelings and your emotions so I think you can choose what you believe you can forgive someone for and what you can’t. Not everyone has to agree with you.

I have had two situations which at the exact opposite effect. I had a friend who I completely fell for head over heels for. He was older, mature, funny, and I found him attractive. At the time my husband and I were falling apart and he was just there. So we talked and talked, flirted, met up a lot, and I finally kissed him. Eventually he said I love you out of the blue and I said it back. I had ended things with my husband to be with him. But due to the history, or feelings, or confusion I went back to my husband and lied to my friend. He was heartbroken, felt betrayed, and was pissed at me. Eventually my husband and I split again.
I had tried talking to my friend with fake screen names and even emails to communicate but he wouldn’t have it. Then he finally emailed me and we did it back and forth. It took me two weeks of begging, talking, to get him to even warm up to the idea. (He’s much like me in the forgiveness sense). I went over his house one night we talked for hours and ended up making love. We started “dating” again but my husband came back into the picture again and he found out. He also warned me if I messed up again there would be no turning back.

First were the nasty emails back and forth, and then were doing the random screen names and finally he threatened to call the cops. Just recently he contacted me because I tried joining his local firefly group, which I didn’t know he was in, letting me know in his own words, that because of what I did to him but there was a “butterfly” effect and he said things should have been different.

He’ll never forgive me. I have apologized time and time again, said I was sorry, but to him it doesn’t matter. If I was in his shoes, I would have done the same thing. I think him doing that was punishing me for hurting him. He’s going to be one of those people where I think time and time again, would we be happy if things were different? What if I never done that, could we have worked out? And because of that I had a wakeup call to my life and my behavior, and thanks to him I changing my life around slowly and in baby steps.

When does forgiveness become enabling behavior? When you let that person does the same thing over and over. I cheated on my husband 3 times over the course of almost 3 years (if you include someone kissing me when he was drunk). Since he keeps forgiving me does he enable me to do it? Eh, that’s debatable. I should stop doing it on my own (which I have since the friend) but personally I think he should have walked away the first time. Forgiveness is a fine line. Telling someone you forgive them means I know you messed up and I can look past it. But what can you look past? What can’t you? Does that mean this person will forgive me every time I mess up? Or just that one time? How do you know when someone is truly sincere? Saying I forgive you doesn’t make the pain go away or the memory, to me saying I forgive you means I’m over it now. So is forgiving someone beneficial at all?

When should we feel compelled to punish, and when is it acceptable or beneficial to forgive? Is it your right to punish someone for what they did? Is putting pictures up of your new hot boyfriend punishing your ex? Isn’t knowing that you made a mistake with a friend punishment enough without a constant reminder? Is making someone sit in jail for killing your daughter or father, enough punishment for you?

Forgiveness is black and white to me. If you kill someone, touch a kid inappropriately, kidnap, steal, cheat, rape, among other things I don’t think you deserve forgiveness. I don’t see how victims can tell someone they forgive them for killing their kid or hurting them. I truly believe some actions are not worth forgiveness and others are. Maybe forgiving someone shows your character? Maybe not, but to me that’s how I see it as.

[Inara: It's all right. I mostly keep to myself. When I'm not whoring.]

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Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:08 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Actually you mistake me, I feel that once the decision has been made that cutting them loose or handing them more opportunities to victimize is act of malice toward others by denial of ones own civic responsibility, I feel the deed itself should be utterly dispassionate - no rhetoric, no torture, no nothin, just bam, bam.

And yeah, it's gonna suck, having to live with that, it comes to it, and it damn well SHOULD, it should never be *easy* to make a decision like that, I feel trying to do so is half the damn problem right there, folk like to split the "responsibility" for a state-ordered death across everyone in that state so they don't have to carry the weight, the guilt... and I think that's bullshit, if someone hasta go, then they gotta go, them that made such an awful decision *MUST* take responsibility for it, personally.

And you of all folk know that despite me being a hard-ass about this, because I have seen, over and over how such foolishness bites us on the ass, I don't necessarily mean many of the bastards we let walk actually needed a damn bullet - had we thrown Nixon and his cronies in PRISON, that alone mighta broke em, had we even disqualified em from public office, we might not be up to our ass in two untenable wars...
But no, we let it slide, and WORSE, we let em slide AGAIN - our kids are gonna fuckin pay for that, never you doubt it for a minute.

But if the choice comes down to a set of really bad options, and the least bad one happens to be one that carries an awful, awful responsibility, I will do what I do - doesn't mean I like it, yanno.

Satsujin no Ken - Katsujin no Ken
The Sword that Takes Life, the Sword that Gives Life
http://vachss.com/guest_dispatches/ellis_amdur.html
Quote:

So I ask the following question, not to get any answers from you, but perhaps to evoke the question within you.

Am I a moral failure in that I did not kill him?

When I interviewed that boy, I knew what he was capable of doing. I had no expectation that treatment would help him, but that was the best suggestion I could come up with. I knew he would, sooner or later, do something horrible to some poor child.

Is it my responsibility merely to do the best I can, offer therapy to those I can, teach as many people as I can how to protect themselves from violence, saving myself to raise my sons, saving myself, therefore, to fight on other days, thereby saving myself from the consequences of a knowledge that I knew was accurate?

I could have saved that child he raped an unimaginable world of pain, and probably other children, as well, when he finally gets out of prison. Were you to hear that I had killed him, solely based on my intuition and assessment, what would be your reaction?

My own answer to this question, of course, is the choice I made, but I will be haunted until my death at the thought of that child, her flesh ground into a sidewalk, the sun beating down upon her pain, indifferent as the flat, shark eyes of her rapist. What, then, is the sword that gives life?


You know, I thought about this question, thought about it a lot, and watching our own foolishness bite us on the ass, over and over, watching so many suffer for it needlessly, well, the way I figure it is this - it comes down to that, one more bloodstain on my ragged conscience, one more trauma amongst so many, is but a pittance of a price to pay.

You wouldn't need to watch, and if I could finagle it, you wouldn't even know.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, January 23, 2011 10:27 AM

FREMDFIRMA


In Fact... and insert a dark and nasty chuckle here that some enterprising newsie rolled the bastard...

I am not the only puppetmaster running a private cell, you know, and most of them that do have other than honorable intentions, mind you.

Case in point: that fucker Duane, D-5 Dovetail.

Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/world/23clarridge.html?_r=1

The kinda people we often wind up locking horns with, privately, in the dark, but here's the rub.
Quote:

Mr. Clarridge, 78, who was indicted on charges of lying to Congress in the Iran-contra scandal and later pardoned, is described by those who have worked with him as driven by the conviction that Washington is bloated with bureaucrats and lawyers who impede American troops in fighting adversaries and that leaders are overly reliant on mercurial allies.

His dispatches — an amalgam of fact, rumor, analysis and uncorroborated reports — have been sent to military officials who, until last spring at least, found some credible enough to be used in planning strikes against militants in Afghanistan. They are also fed to conservative commentators, including Oliver L. North, a compatriot from the Iran-contra days and now a Fox News analyst, and Brad Thor, an author of military thrillers and a frequent guest of Glenn Beck.

For all of the can-you-top-this qualities to Mr. Clarridge’s operation, it is a startling demonstration of how private citizens can exploit the chaos of combat zones and rivalries inside the American government to carry out their own agenda.


One more slimeball we let sleaze away, and author of some of the bullshit reports targeting not actual terrorists, but moderates and other locals who didn't want us in their country fucking it up, not to mention one of the many behind the push for Christian Dominon and war-war-war.

Because we let him walk.

The worst of it, for me, is that as of late it all seems to be coming full circle over fucking Nicaruaga, and our interference there convincing me fully that I was on the wrong side, which was what caused the final break...
Quote:

I have long feared that my sins would return to visit me, and the cost is more than I can bear.

I shoulda shot the lot of em on the way out.

-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.

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