View 402 February 20

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

by Rudyard Kipling

I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.

Thanks to Rod McFadden for reminding me. I post this every few years... See also The Old Issue

Then read The American Gulag. I know little about its author, Thomas Wilner, other than his position as counsel to some of those held in Guantanamo. What he has written in The American Gulag is his interpretation of what he was allowed to see; but since we don't have much information about what goes on in there, we must either assume that Wilner is mad, tells lies, or what he says is true. He doesn't write like a madman, and up to now no one has accused him of being a liar. Moreover, what little else we know about conditions in Club Guantanamo, as Rush Limbaugh is fond of calling it, seems consistent with Wilner's account.

The only justification for treating people this way is military necessity: the national security is so endangered that allowing any courtesies, communications, reading matter, or common comforts would be injurious to American interests, and threaten American citizens with far worse than what is being inflicted on these detainees. Note: detainees. Some may be enemy soldiers. Some may be irregular forces taken in arms on a field of battle and entitled to very little. But some, clearly, are not, and a few have been released after years of Hell with little more than an apology. And some are apparently being held on no evidence other than that of warlords who captured them and sold them for rewards. One is being held because he had a wristwatch of a common make favored by terrorists; if there is any other evidence against him it has not been presented, nor has he had a chance to plead his case before a court, a military tribunal, or even a military legal officer.

I put it to you that this isn't a goal worth fighting for, and if our national security depends on treating people this way, it is a terrible price; and it is not at all obvious that our nation would fall if all of these people were released now. Certainly it would do no harm to release them to more humane internment conditions. Perhaps some might be paroled, released with tracking devices, paroled to sponsors. And at the very least there ought to be a tribunal of three rational officers of the United States armed forces who have decided that there is enough evidence of their danger to the United States that on balance we ought to detain them. If current serving officers fear for their careers, bring three field grade officers out of retirement to hear these matters. Three judges. A panel of fifty citizens drawn at random. Let them look at the evidence and certify that it warrants detention.

Some talk show hosts say that these people have no more than they deserve for having levied war against the American people. That may well be, if indeed all those detained actually were taken in arms without proper uniforms. But so far as I can tell, there have been no such hearings and no such determinations.

As to the costs, it is not the cost to the prisoners that concerns me most. Certainly common humanity dictates that we have some concern for people kept under such strict conditions, not even allowed reading matter other than a Koran; but that's simple human decency. No, my concern is the effect on the troops who enforce these conditions. These are military troopers, soldiers and Marines, combat troops reduced to prison guards: who find themselves no longer part of a military unit facing death and danger for their country, but screws in a concentration camp.

If we must run such camps, would we not be better off setting up some separate guard service than putting warriors in such conditions? Warriors can and should be proud and bold. They do not hide their units and assignments. But I doubt that many are proud of stuffing a feeding tube down a man's nose to end his hunger strike. I doubt many would appreciate medals given for such service. And I doubt many combat officers will want any troopers who are proud of such actions.

The cost of the gulag is high. It is heavy on the zeks. But it is heavier on the guards. We have accounts of Russians given those assignments. Most stayed drunk when possible. I do not have any figures on drunkenness among the Guantanamo Guards, but I would predict they are high. Indeed, I hope they are high. I am not at all sure that an America with armed services that see nothing wrong with keeping a man from seeing the sunlight for months on end; of not informing a man that he had become a father after his arrest and had been a father for years; and so forth. I don't believe the stories of deliberate torture and beatings; but I have no choice but to believe that we are detaining people without even a short hearing to determine the level of threat they may present to us, and that the conditions are barbarous as best. And I cannot think that participation in that is a good thing for warriors to learn before coming home.

We are told, but not with much conviction, and with a total lack of detail, that Guantanamo is necessary to the security of the United States. I do not believe that case has been made. I do not believe that case can be made. I believe we can survive without doing these things -- and that doing them makes our survival worth a very great deal less.

And if conditions are not as reported by the defendants' lawyers, send in reporters. Britt Hume and Rush Limbaugh will do, if the usual press corps is not sufficiently trustworthy. But send in someone, and not for a Potemkin tour. The cost of secrecy is far too high. And my fear is that without the secrecy we would learn that the cost of Gulag Guantanamo is far too high.

Looking for that poem led me to http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view81.html which is the page for the week that included December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000. My entries for Friday December 31 may still be worth reading. It was at least interesting.

This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 8,000 - 12,000 words, depending. (Older columns here.) For more on what this page is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE. If you have never read the explanatory material on that page, please do so. If you got here through a link that didn't take you to the front page of this site, click here for a better explanation of what we're trying to do here. This site is run on the "public radio" model; see below.

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