How to be a dick, Part Deux
From the comfort and safety of your home in a civilized western country, lecture former hostages about why they should have had the guts to get themselves killed rather than say what they had to in order to gain their safe release.
UPDATE: I never thought I’d say this, but apart from the obligatory (and in this case, totally unjustified and unnecessary) swipes at Hugh Hewitt and Jonah Goldberg, Glenn Greenwald got this one exactly right.
UPDATE x2: Heading updated, eschewing standard title case to distinguish dicks from individuals who happen to be named Dick.
September 3rd, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Sorry xrlq but the guy has a point, and Mark Steyn makes it as well. After these guys got out they did not denounce the conversion and the fact of forced conversion at gunpoint has not been made an issue by the media. The enemey uses these tapes exactly as he says they do. The Italian he writes about invigorated Italy. Morale matters and when you make one of these films you kill morale. That is why John McCain and other POW’s smashed their faces into concrete so they would not be put on tape by the NV Communists. It might not be right to require courage in the face of death of journalists but it is not out of bounds to note the effect of capitulation.
September 3rd, 2006 at 12:56 pm
What the guys say or do after captivity is fair game. Attacking them for saying what they had to say while in captivity rather than dying like Italians, is not.
September 3rd, 2006 at 3:05 pm
But Xrlq, the guy’s point is that what they have said afterwards shows that they had not much in the way of inner conflict or concern about the use their “conversions” would be put to when they made them. I don’t think it’s as easy to separate the two–”during” and “after”–as you seem to.
September 3rd, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Those men did behave like cowards. Your implied criticism, that we don’t know that David Warren would have behaved any differently in the same situation, is irrelevant. Maybe David Warren would have been a coward too. Maybe I would have also. It doesn’t matter. Those men did nothing at all to resist their captors or to make their captors regret capturing them, even to the slightest degree. They captitulated entirely to their enemies in the face of a threat. In other words, they behaved like cowards. This is a simple observation of fact regardless of who makes the observation or where they make it from.
If we are ever going to reverse growing the trend of cowardice and timidity among Western men, one way to start is by calling cowardice what it is.
September 3rd, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Objection, Your Honor! Assumes a fact not in evidence.
Of course it’s relevant. If David Warren wants to run off to the Middle East so he can die like a good Italian, let him. Otherwise, he should STFU.
Oh, please. What you call cowardice, I call not being an idiot with a death wish. Sure, I’d like to see more condemnation of the captors after the fact, but judging anyone for how they behaved during a period of captivity that neither you nor I nor that would-be superhero Warren will ever have to deal with simply makes you a prick. This is a simple observation of fact, regardless of who makes the observation or where they make it from.
September 3rd, 2006 at 8:12 pm
[...] (Via Xrlq, whose assessment of Warren is spot-on.) [...]
September 3rd, 2006 at 8:56 pm
jjv,
You’re probably thinking of James B. Stockdale not McCain. McCain did in fact sing like a canary for the North Vietnamese. It was almost a GOP primary issue in 2000. The MSM piled on the Bush campaign for bringing it up and Bush pussied out. I was a little bit surprised, after that, that Bush did not disavow the Swift Boat Vets in 2004.
In any case, I think Mr. Warren’s post is pure BS if not exactly for the same reasons as Xrlq’s. Nobody made those guys America’s representatives. Hell, Mike Wallace and Peter Jennings said on recorded television that while accompanying enemy troops they would allow them to ambush American troops without attempting to warn our troops of the ambush. The PLO is welcome to keep on thinking that we’re all a bunch a sissies as long as we just keep producing Hellfire missiles.
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Xrlq’s right on this. These guys are f***ing journalists, not soldiers. If I faced the prospect of having my head sawed off, I’d “convert” too (facing a bullet to the head is not even close to being as frightening); of course, if I was later freed, I’d give a hearty middle finger to my captors and “reconvert” to Christianity quite promptly.
All of you calling them “cowards” are remarkable. I’d bet good money you’d have done the same as them if beheading was a possible result of your non-compliance.
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:38 pm
To be clear: I haven’t called them cowards and don’t know what I’d do in the same situation. Probably cry and tell them whatever they wanted to hear. But I don’t think it’s as simple as Xrlq does.
September 3rd, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Xrlq is so right here. This oped guy is wrong. They were victims of a crime, kidnapping and totally on their own. They could have chosen to be martyrs, but they didn’t. To expect them to make that choice is no different than the splodydope recruiters expecting splodydopes to ‘splode. It’s not like there were a bunch of Canadian Mounties on the way to save them and Dudley Doright hasn’t made an arrest in this case lately. Leave the victims in peace. Condemn the kidnappers instead.
September 4th, 2006 at 4:55 am
Hube, it’s really annoying when someone replies to my comment and completely misses the main point of the comment. Allow me to repeat more slowly: it doesn’t matter what I would do. Maybe I would sleep with my best friend’s wife under the right circumstances; that doesn’t mean I can’t say that someone who does that is a creep. Maybe I would take the money if I saw someone drop a hundred-dollar bill; that doesn’t mean that I can’t call someone a scoundrel who does it. Maybe I would beg for my life if captured by terrorists; that doesn’t mean I can’t call someone who does that a coward.
If only perfect people could point out bad behavior then no one could ever be criticised. “You would do it too” is no defense against bad behavior.
If there is no shame in capitulation then there is no honor in resistance. If the two reporters were not cowards, then the Italian was just a silly fool. I reject that view. I say that the Italian was a hero and the two reporters were cowards.
September 4th, 2006 at 5:05 am
If there is no shame in capitulation then there is no honor in resistance. If the two reporters were not cowards, then the Italian was just a silly fool. I reject that view. I say that the Italian was a hero and the two reporters were cowards.
Weird. I say that the Italian was a hero and the reporter and his cameraman were normal people.
September 4th, 2006 at 11:42 am
There are a couple aspects here and the problem (I think) is that Warren is conflating them and making them seem cruel as opposed to useful.
It is beyond me to criticize what someone does under threat of death. I’m certainly not going to call them cowards. At the same time, it causes me to ask, what would I do under the threat of death.
More importantly as a Christian, I need to focus on reinforcing the ideas that make what I believe something worth dying for. And that I need to reaffirm daily that Christ and his grace is worth dying for.
It is interesting, Warren at the end refers to “men without chests” which is a statement of where western civilization was headed (in the 40s and 50s) by C.S. Lewis. About how the western world, was abandoning courage and traditional morals as good and replacing everything with “perceptions” I highly recommend “The Abolition of Man” by C.S. Lewis on this point.
I think we have to be careful what we say in a situation like this, I don’t think it is ever appropriate to ask someone to sacrifice themselves for the “good of all of us,” but I do think we can use this time to talk to ourselves about when is sacrificing one’s self appropriate.
Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, and the other men who were killed in the jungle chose not to fire on the wahhani because they knew their eternal position, and as a result, many came to Christ. We should be aware enough to ask us the important question, “What am I willing to die for?”
September 4th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Doc: on what planet is 100% of the population either a hero or a coward, with nothing in between? Even in such a bizarro world, your comparison (and that idiot Warren’s) between Centanni & Wiig vs. Fabrizio Quattrocchi is a lousy one. Warren is full of crap to say their lives (especially Centanni’s) were not in danger, but unlike Quattrocchi, they were also in “danger” of surviving the ordeal if they played their cards right. Quattrocchi didn’t have life and freedom as an option; his only choice was to either die like Nick Berg in a propaganda video or to die like an Italian, ruin the propaganda value of the film, and die a relatively quick and painless death to boot. Good for him; he made the best possible choice given two horrible alternatives. But anyone who deliberately chooses to die like an Italian rather than live like a normal person is an idiot, not a hero.
September 4th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Well, from a Christian persepective its better to die than to renounce Christ. But the very thought pattern that leads you to believe that choosing not to make jihadi video propaganda and dying is “idiotic” emboldens our foes.
On the other hand, the comment on McCain is a lot of nonsense. McCain did not make propaganda films for the enemy. He may have broken under torture on occassion(and I think admits as much) but he could have gone home at any time and did not. If he sang at all it was not like a canary but like a canary with two broken legs a broken wing, infected, under constant torture by professional torturers. I have a lot of problems with the guy but if someone thinks its a good idea to say he wasn’t tough enough, captured and under torture, there is a bridge in Brooklyn that I could sell you cheap.
I think there should be some stigma or shame for a man making these films whether military or not.
What if, as a new Muslim they were required to cut off some other infidenl’s head and did so? Same result, you wont’ judge because they are under death threat? As sure as anything the propaganda value of these vids is going to get someone kidnapped and killed. Its not such a no brainer.
September 4th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Weird. I say that the Italian was a hero and the reporter and his cameraman were normal people.
That might be part of the problem, where a submission to an enemy so easily given is defined as the “normal” course of action.
And as for XRLQ’s contention that unless Warren (whose “they weren’t Christians” crap was nonsense) decides to go to the Middle East himself, he should STFU, that speaks for itself (and not favorably).
Call it the “chickenhostage” line of reasoning.
If people are going to laud Quattrocchi, then Olaf and Centanni’s conduct is also subject to criticism (or praise, depending on how you view it).
But the fact remains that they submitted in a very public manner to the demands of the enemy for propaganda purposes. That’s at best a dishonorable act. At worst a cowardly one.
You might excuse/justify the act given the circumstances –but that doesn’t change what the act actually was.
September 4th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Army Lawyer, I’m glad I’m not the only one for whom that “you’re safe at home so don’t criticize” argument didn’t sit well. It is indeed far too much like chickenhawk for my taste.
September 4th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Is honor worth dying for?…
these people are making the same mistake I made initially: “Well, I would probably capitulate in those circumstances and of course I’m not a coward ”…
September 5th, 2006 at 7:12 am
JJV: If you ignore the inconvenient fact that Centanni and Wiig were there as journalists, and not on the front line of the Onward Christian Soldiers Martyr Brigade, then I suppose it makes sense to brand them as cowards rather than simply identifying them as normal people. Otherwise, saying what they had to to gain their freedom is the most anyone should expect of them; it’s not remotely comparable to cutting someone’s head off if ordered to do so. At some point, the only thing left for a hostage to do is say “fine, do me in.” Centanni and Wiig were nowhere near that point.
AL: Doing or saying what you have to in order to survive has always been the normal/natural instinct. Calling that “part of the problem” makes about as much sense as whining about the fact that the sky is blue rather than green.
AL & Anwyn: The “chickenhawk” analogy is inapt. For one thing, as the heading of this entry ought to make clear, my principal point was that Warren is a dick, not that he’s wrong on the substantive issue (which he also is, but for reasons unrelated to his hypocrisy). Suppose for argument’s sake that the guy had actually made a decent point, rather than spewing the incoherent verbal diarrhea that he did. The validity of his (purely hypothetical) point would not change the fact that he was a dick to get all self-righteous about it, especially while discussing two journalists whose very presence in the Middle East had exhibited more courage than he himself had.
This is not the “chickenhawk” argument. This is more like the Glenn Greenwald ex post facto definition of “chickenhawk,” where mere advocacy of a particular course of action becomes a substitute for the courage it would take to carry it out. At the time Greenwald floated that theory, I was confident it applied to no one, and happily wrote off as a strawtard. Apparently, I was wrong and Jon Henke was right; Greenwald’s version of the chickenhawk does indeed exist, and is still in need of a name.
By contrast, the real chickenhawk argument – don’t advocate a war unless you’ve fought one – is unaffected by this analysis. No one’s telling Warren not to advocate his own definition of bravery, only to be more circumspect while judging others who come closer to meeting his own standard than he himself ever will. Someone who has never fought in a war in the past – or, more aptly, someone who has actively avoided fighting in one – has every right to advocate one today; however, he has no right to get self-righteous toward those who are as loath to fight this one as he himself was to fight the last.
September 5th, 2006 at 9:50 am
I note he has a new post up on this today (I don’t know how to link in comments [The same way you link in ordinary HTML, i.e., <a href="http://www.example.com/">like this.</a> I've added a link to the article in question. -X]). The whole conversation also put me in mind of the Jesuits who were in England under the Tudors and what they were allowed to pretend to renounce and still remain Catholics in good standing.
September 5th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Mark Steyn compared the two Fox journalists with characters in a goddam novel, as a device to denounce them. Steyn’s representatives from the mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle behaved bravely in the face of Muslim demands that they convert; real men in 2006 didn’t pass the Conan Doyle test, and so Steyn finds them worthy of a smackdown.
I would also note that Power Line highly recommended the Steyn screed, describing it as “outstanding.” Scott at that site chose to specifically comment only on Steyn’s corollary points about Reuters, but he linked to the column not just approvingly, but glowingly.
I know xrlq and many others find it horrifying that I, Greenwald, Jon Swift and others regularly hold up Power Line commentary to scathing contempt, but there is a reason for that. John Hinderaker has approvingly linked to Harvey Mansfield’s insistence that George Bush should be above the law, that we should welcome a “prince” who ostensibly protects us from the dangers of the “rule of law.” Hinderaker has further, and repeatedly, distorted a seminal SCOTUS Opinion widely applied and endorsed even by Sam Alito and Alberto Gonzales; Hinderaker dismisses Justice Jackson’s concurrence in Youngstown as “silly.” Any competent lawyer reading Hinderaker on Youngstown would know how obtuse and misleading he was being, but Power Line’s lay readers would not. It is so dishonest, and my contempt for that is pretty boundless. Hinderaker carries on like that because he is a competent lawyer, and he knows that Jackson’s widely applied and respected Opinion is fatal to Bush’s radical theories of a lawless Executive.
If one reads Power Line, or Hugh Hewitt, with knowledge of what they are discussing, one can nearly suffer a cranial explosion. Once one understands how fundamentally dishonest they are in the service of apologizing for George Bush, everything else gets interpreted through that understanding. It does make a difference.
September 5th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
So in basic English, anything I do under while held by Islamic nutcases is OK, convert to Islam, Say the right words, preform the right acts, maybe kill a fellow jewish hostage to get a better seating arrangement, anything, right? And of course help lead the way for it happening again to someone else, because I was so helpful to the cause. And nobody can be critical of me, because they MIGHT react the same way in the same conditions. Great logic guys, anything to survive, screw your fellow citizens (its all about you. right?) Maybe GWB should just anounce that america has converted to Islam, then the wars over right? Pitiful.
September 6th, 2006 at 7:02 am
“Great logic” indeed. Wiig and Centanni didn’t kill any hostages, or do anything remotely comparable to that. At some point the only decent thing to do even while in captivity is to say “OK, just do me in now.” This was not such a case.
September 6th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
For the record with 3 close relatives (Father, Father-in-law, and Grandfather) named Richard that this “How to be a Dick” series is unfair to Dick’s everywhere.
Can I also say, that I really do like the name Richard, and having is sullied by the obnoxious allusions of teenagers of the word dick is really kind of annoying frankly.
September 6th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
Hmmm, what to do. I could use some other slang term, like “peter,” “johnson” or “xrlq,” but then I’d be equally offensive to guys named Peter, Johnson or Xrlq. What if I just got rid of the title case, with each heading reading “How to be a dick” rather than “How to be a Dick?” That way, we’d clearly differentiate dicks from innocent bystanders whose names just happen to be Dick.
September 7th, 2006 at 1:03 am
I like that idea it sounds completely reasonable! ;-)
September 7th, 2006 at 8:29 am
I think it goes back to Richard III.
September 7th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
Yeah, that Richard III guy was a Dick.