Art, Torture, Islamists, Third World

I read recently about an art exhibit in Los Angeles by a British artist named Banksy. He spray-painted an elephant as a prop in his campaign to raise our awareness that "many people live below the poverty line." He handed out cards that read, "There's an elephant in the room. There's a problem we never talk about." I'm sure that Banksy really wants to help people in need, but do you suppose he doesn't realize that there will always be people living below the poverty line? Governments guarantee that because they keep moving the poverty line.

Anyhow, Banksy fell victim to the law of unintended consequences. Someone did see the elephant in the room. That someone was an animal lover who felt that spray-painting an elephant was abusive.
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Senators McCain, Warner, Graham and others are opposed to President Bush's push to clarify the rules about what constitutes 'outrages upon personal dignity' (Common Article 3 from the Geneva Convention) when interrogating captured enemy combatants, thereby legalizing 'alternative interrogation practices'. One of the reasons they give is that doing so will cause our enemies to torture our soldiers when they are captured. Of all people, John McCain should know better. That is, he should know that our enemies will torture our soldiers regardless of any law that we pass. We don't go to war against nations that are guided by high moral principles. We go to war against despots, lunatics and angry radical factions that have proclaimed their intent to destroy us.

I know that severe torture is inhumane and I agree that we should not do it except under rare critical circumstances. But it is incomprehensible to me that people, judged by their reaction, seem more strongly opposed to subjecting a captive to cold temperatures and rock music than to killing combatants on the battlefield.

I wonder if the people creating all this commotion over our treatment of detainees ever consider that this might influence our soldiers when they have to make quick kill-or-capture decisions on the battlefield.
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I highly recommend that you read Head-in-the-Sand Liberals authored by Sam Harris and published today in the Los Angeles Times. Harris is an avowed liberal and the LA Times definitely leans left, but I agree with everything he says -- except the part about raising taxes and allowing homosexuals to marry (actually homosexuals are free to marry, but I'm sure he meant same sex marriage). The essence of the article is that the threat from radical Islam is very real and liberals just refuse to see it. He says that the liberals misunderstand the motivations of the Islamists and are misguided about how we should address the threat that they pose.
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Why do we never hear about 'first world countries' or 'second world countries'? All we ever hear about are 'third world countries'. Well, actually we do hear about them; they just aren't called that. But they do turn up in an internet search. I wonder if the UN has rules that define what constitutes a third world country. And do they have criteria that when met allow a third world country to move up to second world status? Are there fourth world countries?

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