Rachel Maddow, Guantanamo and Dr. Han S. Park

Earlier today I followed a link provided by a liberal/leftist message board participant that would supposedly show why torture is bad (mmm-kay?). Or, more properly, why waterboarding three terrorists up through 2005 or so is a bad idea.

The link led to a segment from Rachel Maddow's NBC news/opinion show. During the segment, Maddow tried to make the less-than-novel case that the failure of the U.S. to be nice to detainees would justify mistreatment of Americans by other nations.

They key illustration in the segment came via anecdote from Han S. Park, a professor from the University of Georgia who, for some reason, is able to travel with relative freedom between the U.S. and North Korea. Perhaps it is because Kim Jong-il enjoys hearing Park's criticisms of the North Korea regime. Or maybe Park is an incredible suck up. Or something somewhere in between.

So by now I'm curious about this Park guy. He is apparently not a representative of the U.S. government. What does he represent?

Park offers some powerful clues in his writing. He advocates a new international relationship paradigm called the peace regime:

In a peace regime, differences are accepted and respected, domination is replaced by coordination, accommodation is favored over assimilation, and ultimately, dialogue is used as the only instrument for its creation. A peace regime requires a culture of diversity and relativism. We must have faith in dialogue and compromise. These norms are essential elements of democracy. One might ask: Can we and should we accommodate terrorist behavior in the name of harmony and accommodation? Certainly not! Terrorism should be allowed no room in a civilized world. However, our efforts to eliminate terrorism should never resort to the instrument of a security regime, i.e., physical coercion through military or economic sanction. In the post-Cold War era, neither has worked.

With all due respect to Park's PhD., this "peace regime" thing is obviously self-contradictory by his own description. "(D)ifferences are accepted and respected" (except terrorist behaviors!). "A peace regime requires a culture of diversity and relativism," though terrorists are just a little too diverse as well as being absolutely wrong--in a relative way, no doubt.

Park is incoherent in a way that it seems only highly paid liberal college professors can achieve.

One might ask, however, what does this have to do with the importance of his anecdote?

That is a good question, and I do not wish to overplay Park's nuttiness in addressing the issue. Even if the anecdote was reliably transmitted, so what? Our enemies are always going to seize on anything they can in order to justify their actions or improve their bargaining power. North Korea had established its own reputation for brutal treatment of prisoners long before the first terrorist detainee set foot in the relatively comfy confines of Gitmo.

Thus, the notion that the treatment of detainees at Gitmo puts prisoners in North Korea at greater risk is ridiculous on its face, even if it is patently predictable that other nations would make a special effort to remind the world of the supposed sins of the U.S. in justifying their own misdeeds.

But given Park's political outlook, there is reason for suspicion of his account simply because it serves his purposes to offer a report along these lines. Did MSNBC take any steps to corroborate Park's claim?

I doubt it.