Saturday, October 27, 2012

Absolution

Someone gave an order, turned off a monitor and retired for the evening.

I had a conversation with my Rabbi some months ago and something he said to me really penetrated deep. He was speaking in general terms about leaders and he said, “People like the president for example, have a power that few people will ever have. They have the power to send people to their death, to have people killed. That power changes them.” That’s was the gist of the conversation.

But that isn’t where my contemplation of that conversation ended. I’ve literally thought about that conversation every day since then and I’ve arrived at conclusions based on reflections that I’d never given time to before. I don’t have time to relate all of those conclusions, but one of them is this: Like most influences and situations that cause a person to change, the change that occurs can be either good, or bad. It’s never neutral, or it wouldn’t be change.

When President Bush sent troops against the radical Islamists, I don’t think that he really deeply considered the implications of that decision – at first. It was an obvious decision; they’d left this country no choice and he did what any leader (for the most part) would have done. But after a while, any honest observer would have noted that his decision to deal with America’s enemies by defeating them – killing them, and to have American’s lose their lives as a result, deeply affected him. I also believe that any honest observer would have noted that though he made the decision that had to be made, he also regretted that he had to have made it. In other words, the change that the power of life and death made in him was a good, or positive change, in my opinion.

After the tragedy of Benghazi, something that struck me that several people said immediately following the event was that the people murdered knew the risks involved. The obvious conclusion that nearly everyone draws is that this is a reference to the courage of all Foreign Service employees. Even though this is a seemingly obvious one, I don’t think that this interpretation of the statement could be further from the truth.

The events of Benghazi are hard for me to dwell on. The consulate came under an organized attack. Lives were in peril. There was a struggle to survive. People needed help. They needed rescuers - they needed rescued. There was unimaginable fear – terror – desperation – prayers for salvation. There were calls for help. Hope faded as the calls for help were refused. Hope returned as someone disobeyed orders to “stand down” and at the risk of their own lives, two men rushed to the scene in an heroic effort to save those in peril.

The story goes continues, but we know the ending.

Someone made a decision. They had the power. They had the power of life and death. The possession of that power, the knowledge of it at some earlier point in time, had changed them. They made a calculation. In this calculation among a number of factors, was one that informed them that these people knew the risks. They made the decision, turned off a monitor and retired for the evening as if the decision they had just made was about the color of the shirt they would wear tomorrow.

And in the morning following the event, they came before the American people and talked of the tragedy and they informed all of us of the courage of these people because they knew the risks. The only problem is that they didn’t mean that statement as a statement of courage of the victims; they made that statement as a form of absolution - self-absolution and an expression of will that the whole of America absolve them as well, because they were the wielders of the power. The murdered knew the risks, they concluded, so they must have known that someone somewhere held the power over their lives, so implicitly no fault could be imputed to they that made the decision that cost them their lives, as long as the decision makers themselves decided that their lives were a reasonable expense. The decision makers were absolved.

From this we can see how the power of life and death can change someone – for good, or bad.

The person, or the people, who made the decision not to rescue these people absolved themselves of any blame in their deaths. They justified their decisions based on that power having been bestowed on them and on the fact that the people over whom they held the power knew the risks.

But I don’t absolve them. I believe their callus decision; their morbid, ghastly math to allow these people to be murdered in terror and desperation borders on evil. It informs us as to their fitness to hold their offices and to wield this terrible power over people’s lives.

Obviously, it’s ok if you disagree with me about my conclusions, but before you do, I would ask you to look back on decisions that have been made by this administration with respect to withdrawal deadlines, the surges, the handling of the Fort Hood murderer and many other decisions that influenced the lives, and in many cases the deaths, of people – especially soldiers and “people who knew the risks,” even the voting history they had before they came to power; e.g. the “Born Alive” legislation.

I don’t absolve them. Neither should you. We deserve, and we should demand answers. The person or persons who made this decision are deserving of punishment – severe punishment. These people should not be allowed possess this power because THEY DO NOT POSSESS THE CHARACTER to wield it. They should have it not one moment longer. Not optimal. Not tolerable.

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