Lynndie England's Smile

When one puts security ahead of human rights, unspeakable crimes are committed in the name of fighting terror. According to this op-ed article from Peru's El Commercio, this leads to the 'beastialization' of warfare, the prime example of our times being former U.S. Army PFC Lynndie England and her 'treacherous smile.'

By Fernando Berckmeyer, News Analyst

Translated by Richard Hauenstein

January 7, 2005

El Comercio - Original Article (Spanish)    

International human rights (IHR) ought to be one of the most beautiful of human creations. It is, after all, the most concrete and complete expression of the negation of humanity's descent to the level of the beast. Still more so, under the most extreme circumstance: war, where the enemy daily ambushes the property, the health, the life, and also the dignity of our loved ones.

It is not insignificant that IHR is the direct fruit of that quality which, as Rousseau said, truly distinguishes man from the rest of the animals: the ability to feel sorrow for the pain of our fellow men. I am reminded of the story of Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross and the person who first inspired the Geneva Conventions.

IHR and the Human Rights they embody, unquestionably have their enemies. We are again starting to listen to these enemies in Peru, in the discussion about the general amnesty proposed for those who fought against terrorist violence.

The sum of their arguments go more or less like this: Human Rights are nothing more than an instrument of the pro-terrorist Left, or the "drawing room sentimentalists" that permit them to make speeches about Human Rights because, thanks to the bravery of those they accuse, their heads are still attached to their bodies. The desire to put limits on war is absurd, utopian, and achieves nothing more than dispiriting and debilitating those who defend our security. Perhaps the terrorists respect the human rights of our soldiers?

These ideas at first glance seem persuasive. Views that appear well-crafted become simply clever: skillful attempts to make a camel - that there should be no rules or penalties in warfare - pass through the eye of a needle - this is what is really needed to win the war. And the question then becomes: what, for example, does valor have to do with the violation of a 13-year-old girl who was gang-raped by the 15 members of a platoon who seized her one unlucky day while they were on patrol in Huanuco? What relationship is there between the effectiveness of the antiterrorist fight, and the massacre of 23 children in Accomarca? How did it aid our cause, the state of those men and women who are packed together, with only one arm, one eye, one testicle, in mountain jails? Was all of this a necessary military strategy?

[Editor's Note: December 22, 2005: The Peruvian government declared a "regional state of emergency" in six provinces, including Huanuco Province. The cause of the declaration was a guerrilla attack on December 20 when Shining Path guerillas ambushed a Peruvian paramilitary police unit in Huanuco. At least eight police officers died in the attack].

Our times offer us a magnificent example of the beastialization to which war without IHR necessarily carries us: the infamous photo of American soldier Lynndie England posing next to the prisoners she tortures, and wearing a treacherous smile. That was not a "strategic" smile. That smile was pure sadism.

As for the rest [of the cases cited here], the argument that such brutality is justified by the actions of the terrorists is a very poor one. Precisely that which is supposed to be the difference between the forces of order and the terrorists is that the former fight for a right that seeks to protect the liberties and the inalienable dignity of mankind. When this ceases to be so, the terrorists win. When, for instance, our taxes pay soldiers who kill people by sodomizing them with red-hot irons, it doesn't much matter what is left for us to defend.

Kant, who lived before IHR, said it very well: "War is bad, because it creates more evil men than it kills." War without rules is particularly bad, in the end, because it creates smiles like those of Lynndie England.