Columnist finds radio host Rush Limbaugh torturous
John Aden Lewis
Guest Column

To paraphrase the philosopher Karl Popper: A foolish man spends his life trying to prove what he already knows; a wise man, on the other hand, spends his life trying to disprove what he claims to know.

Few individuals embody fundamental foolishness like Rush Limbaugh. Faced with clear, overwhelming, and unambiguous evidence that members of the United States military were engaged in widespread and heinous acts of torture in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, here was Limbaugh’s response:

"This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we’re going to ruin people’s lives over it, and we’re going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You ever heard of emotional release?"

Emotional release?

I’m trying to understand how a person gets "emotional release" by locking naked prisoners in cells without light or toilet facilities, beating them (some to death), firing on and killing unarmed prisoners, forcing female prisoners to expose their breasts, piling naked male prisoners on top of one another, terrifying them with attack dogs, and using broomstick handles as tools for sexual assault.

If this is Limbaugh’s idea of "emotional release," I’m wondering what he does — other than drugs— for "fun."

By attempting to justify torture with the absurd comparison between fraternity hazing and something that the International Red Cross calls "serious violations of humanitarian law," Limbaugh belittles an incident that may undermine our country’s moral authority for several generations.

As much as I would like to believe that the United States always treats prisoners-of-war in accord with the Geneva Conven-tion, and as much as I would like to believe that leaders in our military neither ignore, support, nor condone acts of abuse and torture, there seems to be strong evidence to the contrary.

Yet Limbaugh’s statements perpetuate the sick and twisted notion that patriotism means blindly supporting and justifying every single act that our country undertakes.

A true patriot is someone who unrelentingly demands that the leaders of our nation and our military uphold the two central principles upon which the United States was founded: liberty and justice.

In a world where 300 million Americans need to live peaceably with 5.7 billion non-Americans, Limbaugh’s irresponsible and immoral statements deserve our outrage. And for those readers of this column who listen to Limbaugh (a small number, I suspect) — he deserves permanent retirement from your radio dial.

John Aden Lewis is a resident of Metuchen