Gina Haspel has been nominated to be CIA chief and is under considerable pressure for her relationship with the "enhanced interrogation" techniques of the agency.
Posturing aside, this is very strange. She is being criticized by members of the government for what she did as the government's agent. That simply can not be. The society can not compartmentalize its acts. When it bombs someone, the air force is not doing that on its own. We are doing it. The society is a participant in its agents' actions, whether it admits it or not. When the voting is over and we commit young people to combat, the loyal opposition can not rise above the position of the majority and distinguish themselves by public opposition and distance. The society should participate--and suffer, to some reasonable extent--for its decisions and the for the risks of its agents.
If one disagrees, leaving the culture is an option, driving an ambulance is an option, but acting as if you are not involved or aiding and abetting the enemy of the culture's agents are not options.
This concept is even more obvious in the case of Ms. Haspel: She opposed enhanced interrogations.
Incidentally, there is an argument that the PTSD afflictions of the military is related to this arbitrary and goofy estrangement-- the soldier returning to a culture that does not see him as its representative. Primitive cultures--who see conflict as total--draw no distinctions between the warrior and the society and have little of this problem.
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