Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, truly extraordinary

Written by: Richard Lara on Apr 25, 2007 11:15 PM EDT

Sometimes it is appropriate to fight fire with fire, and sometimes it is not. Most children would recognize that the United States’ effort to put an end to terrorism falls into the latter category, but Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (Rep. 46th Congressional District) claims that it is acceptable to fight terrorism by doing harm to perfectly innocent people.

Rohrabacher stated this opinion in a televised House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on the Bush administration’s practice of “extraordinary rendition.” This practice involves abducting “terror suspects who had never been indicted for any crimes” and torturing them in order to acquire information about terrorist activities.

In the hearing, Rohrabacher acknowledged that in accordance with extraordinary rendition, the US had abducted as many as 200 innocent people and tortured some of them. He defended the practice by saying: “[…] we’ve got to make sure that we do not let go 50 terrorists who will go out and plant a bomb in London and kill 20,000 people in order to protect that one person who we arrested accidentally […] That’s the type of unfortunate consequence.” He later added: “We want to get information from somebody that we think might want to kill our children and kill your children.” In other words, Rohrabacher claims that one may justifiably wrong some innocent people so long as one is convinced that doing so benefits a significant number of other people.

Rohrabacher later repeated his support of extraordinary rendition. He said, “[I]f in order to protect the rights of one or two people, or five people or ten people, who are mistakenly abducted, […], if 10 of those people suffer those consequences, but in order for us to take 90 other people off the street who are intent and involved in plans that would slaughter tens of thousands of our citizens, I’m afraid that’s the price we pay in a real world.” Again, there are serious problems with Rohrabacher’s position.

If Congressman Rohrabacher is right, then Al Queda’s terrorist attacks against the United States on 9/11/2001 were justified. Indeed, this utterly absurd conclusion follows quite naturally from Rohrabacher’s position.

Rohrabacher says that the terrorists’ hatred of our way of life is what motivates their attacks on innocent people. They want to stop the spread of our way of life in order to preserve their own way of life. They are convinced that their way of life is beneficial to a significant number of people, namely to themselves and their kin, so they think they have the right to harm some innocent people in order to preserve their way of life and thereby benefit a significant number of others. When their attacks are condemned, they contend that their actions are justifiable given the harshness of the real world.

The question is, of course, whether such attacks really are morally and legally justifiable, and for most Americans the answer is obvious: “Absolutely not!” However, the freethinking Congressman’s position leads to a different answer. The fact that terrorist attacks involve doing harm to some innocent people is, according to Rohrabacher’s own logic, perfectly acceptable because the terrorists are convinced that stopping the spread of our way of life in order to preserve theirs is beneficial to a significant number of other people.

Those present at the hearing found Rohrabacher’s position deeply troubling, yet the worst was yet to come.

Audience members, who like most of us believe that doing harm to innocent people is unlawful and evil, groaned in disapproval of the lawmaker’s remarks. Rohrabacher, a United States Congressman, responded to them by saying: “Well, I hope it’s your families, I hope it’s your families that suffer the consequences.”

His response explains a lot. Wishing harm on innocent people comes very easy to the Congressman. You need not be a suspected terrorist in order for him to wish you harm – though in his mind such suspicion alone would justify your abduction and torture. You need not disagree with his absurd opinion in order for him to wish you harm – though doing so would also suffice to provoke his wrath.

No, you need only be the wee, innocent child of someone who disagrees with his absurd opinion, and Congressman Rohrabacher will hope to see your cute little body vaporized in a suicide bombing.

Keep up the good work, Congressman! You are an inspiration to us all.

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