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January 20, 2005
Is It Torture
Yet?
Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
By
DAVID UNDERHILL
The Republican senators were already
content in confinement. And the Democrats shuffled grumbling
into their cage and handed Alberto Gonzales the key even before
the judiciary committee began his confirmation hearings. No,
their remarks had signaled, they would not resolutely try to
block his rise to attorney general.
They would, at most, try to
prevent a subsequent vault to the supreme court by tarnishing
him with the "torture" memos he has drafted or shepherded
as the president's counsel-if they could even get copies, rather
than relying on leaks, rumors, and news reports. With or without
official versions to brandish at the hearings and on the floor
of the senate, the White House would continue to claim that such
documents amount merely to legal theorizing; it is not the policy
of the United States to torture prisoners in the war on terror.
True. If all involved gingerly
avoid defining torture, how could it ever be said to occur?
One way of accomplishing this is to define it, then redefine
it, and redefine it again-as the memos have done-until a dizzying
fog surrounds it.
Another way is to shrink from
naming it. Media accounts abound of grisly and appalling deeds
which, if done by foreigners, would swiftly be termed torture.
Instead, they are labeled abuse or mistreatment. The T word
rarely appears. And the media thus become partners in the administration's
denials.
Even a Red Cross report on
the harrowing of inmates at Abu Ghraib turned anemic and wobbly.
It dared only to describe this behavior as "tantamount
to torture." And as the hearings opened senator Patrick
Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the judiciary committee, repeated
this convenient phrase to evade saying plainly that Americans
have tortured their prisoners.
Nor did Gonzales' miraculous
hearing-room conversion delete torture from the penal repertoire.
Despite the stark and plain meaning of his memos, his formal
statement to the committee pledged fealty to the law and treaties,
which prohibit torture. This is a hollow promise. The memos
verify that, with a nod and a wink from W, he's willing to stretch
and wrench that word like a heretic on an Inquisition rack.
And in response to some senators' questions he twirled a verbal
tiptoe dance that deftly left W in supposed possession of supreme
constitutional authority to do almost any damn thing he pleases.
So the hearings will perform
only the ritual of blessing Gonzales for confirmation by the
full senate-unless they are resumed for the useful purpose of
forging a clear definition of torture. Then the underlings abroad
would at last have a fair notion of permitted or prohibited behavior.
This will allow them to dodge what's happening now: court martial
for doing what they rightly gathered is desired of them, while
their superiors piously disavow ever intending such things.
To achieve this beneficial
result the committee should conduct an inquiry akin to the medieval
testing of witches to discover by rigorous methods who really
were ones and who were not. Subpoena as witnesses several of
the chief architects of the war on terror and its descent into
torture. Subject them to a crescendo of the techniques that
have been used on prisoners. And invite these human lab rats
to announce when the sensations they are experiencing have ceased
being abuse or mistreatment and have become torture.
Room 101
Enact these scientific inquiries
in a large cubicle built in the space usually housing witness
tables on the floor of the hearing room directly in front of
the tiered seating for committee members. Construct its walls
of one-way glass so that all in the room can see everything,
but the witnesses can see nothing outside the box. They will
know only that a crowd is watching. Cameras and mikes will monitor
all proceedings, any part of which could be broadcast everywhere.
So the witnesses will be aware that their humiliation, pain,
cowering, and cringing might be observed by anyone.
This feature is essential.
The torturers have confirmed this by photographing and videoing
their activities, then telling the prisoners that unless they
become more cooperative these pictures will be shown to their
families and friends. That threat, too, is torture. The horrors
inflicted in 1984's torture chamber-Ministry of Love,
Room 101-were mental more than physical and were more effective
for that reason. So this Orwellian name should be affixed to
the door of the box. But informally it would probably be called
the Tortugon.
The hearing room must be one
large enough for some public attendance and also, besides the
presiding judiciary committee, for most of the members of congress.
They will be chosen in tribute to their supine silence. The
only exemptions will be for members who can prove by documentary
evidence that they have openly and vigorously opposed the torture.
Clucking and tut-tutting in cloakrooms and at cocktail parties
will not suffice.
But redemption beckons for
the congressional offenders. To symbolize their torpor they
will be trussed in sensory deprivation outfits like the ones
on captives in transit to Guantanamo: orange jumpsuits, blackout
goggles, sound-proof earmuffs, mouths taped, hands cuffed, ankles
chained to their chairs arrayed around the edges of the room,
with public seating at the center. This see-hear-speak-no-evil
orange arc will assess the proceedings as best they can in these
circumstances. At any point when any of them detect torture
occurring in the Tortugon, this recognition will secure their
release. But their outfits would prevent them from either detecting
that or declaring it. Therefore, a group of their major campaign
donors will be hovering in the hallways at all times, ready to
tell the committee what the mummified members of congress think.
A few skeptics might concede
that all these arrangements are apt but hesitate over the selection
of techniques to be applied to the witnesses. Much has been
alleged but little conclusively proved yet about the deeds done
to the inmates, they could say. It would be unfair to subject
the witnesses to assumed torments that haven't actually occurred.
This objection is easily dismissed.
First: Like millions of others, Brent Mickum, lawyer for a
prisoner in Guantanamo, says that initially he "wondered
whether this could all be true." But "now there's
no question these guys have been torturedevery allegation that
I've heard has now come to pass and been confirmed by the government's
own papers." Second: There's scarcely any limit to what
some people will do, if authorities erase or blur the boundaries
of acceptable behavior. The authorities in Washington did just
that, and some of the consequences have become apparent. Many
other consequences have not yet-and may never. But whatever
might be done in the Tortugon, it is unlikely to exceed what
has already happened somewhere in the war on terror's gulag.
The Witnesses
Guards at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere
prepared captives for interrogation by humiliating and disorienting
treatment intended to weaken their resolve to resist. This process
will begin at the hearings by handcuffing each witness, then
hooding them with sacks smeared with urine, feces, or other stinks.
Some will remain cuffed and be kept blinded and nauseated by
the hoods throughout the proceedings. Guards will shove them
into the hearing room and prod, drag, and kick them along the
seating aisles to the door of the Tortugon.
There they become the toys
of an assortment of inquisitors from various American military
and spy agencies, contractors from murky security companies,
and veteran specialists in information extraction from Israel
and Chile, among other places.
These agents have been thoroughly
briefed about the known techniques to replicate here. Plus,
they are given some imaginative latitude to account for ones
not yet exposed. Since dozens of prisoners have died at their
captors' hands, the inquisitors understand that they may, with
difficult subjects, proceed to that point.
A sonorous voice flows from
speakers around the room naming each witness and describing the
activities that made them worthy of offering testimony about
the definition of torture. Then they are yanked into the Tortugon,
the door slams shut, and the inquiry begins.
David Addington,
Prof. John Yoo, Judge Jay Bybee Parsing Pettifoggers of
Pain
These three lawyers wrote or
joined with Gonzales in creating the memos with the trickle-down
torture effects. Addington is vice president Cheney's counsel.
Yoo and Bybee both labored at the justice department. One received
a professorship at the University of California law school in
recognition of his work, the other the robes of a federal judge.
This Gang of Three are the chief source of the legal arguments
pronouncing the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of enemy
prisoners "obsolete." They argued that "cruel,
inhuman or degrading" treatment is not torture. Transient
mental anguish does not count. Nor does mere bodily pain. True
torture arrives only at the level of pain "of an intensity
akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as
death or organ failure." And even then the damage must
be "specifically intended" or no torture has occurred.
At a White House meeting with Gonzales the pain quotient of
various techniques was debated. Among other measures: slapping
"just to shock someone with the physical impact,"
"waterboarding," and mock burial alive.
Inquisitors strip the trio
naked, rip off their hoods and slap them across the facewith
hard, percussive cracksagainagainblood and bits of chipped teeth
seep from mouths.
"Is this torture yet?"
the agents ask.
They strap the three to boards
that pivot head-down into a trough of swill and excrementkeep
them there until they are gagging and wild with panic of drowning
lever them briefly up to airdown again
Torture yet?
Hoist them outdump them into
a binstart shoveling dirt on themdeeply cover the legs firstthen
torsothen
Torture yet?
In the absence of an affirmative
response by the witnesses to these interrogatories the tribunal
may infer a negative.
They are unearthed and hauled
to a side of the Tortugon reserved for further "softening
up" of witnesses. The agents bind them into painfully contorted
"stress positions" and leave them there without food
or water, perhaps for days awaiting recall for further testimony
as the hearings progress.
"Think about this while
you wait," says an inquisitor. "If we bring you back
for more testing, no matter what we do it won't be torture.
Unless, as you wrote, any damage done is 'specifically intended.'
But we intend you no damage-up to and including death. Our
only intent is gathering information."
Torture yet?
Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Offense
The voice recounts Rumsfeld's
review and approval of various lists describing "aggressive"
techniques that can be used on prisoners.
He enters, stumbling, as guards
hustle him down an aisle and into the Tortugon. The hood is
snatched off his slumping head and his glasses fall to the floor,
shattering.
An interrogator gives him a
document. Rumsfeld squints. "Can't read it," he says.
"You broke my glasses!" The paper rattles in his
cuffed hands.
"Let me help you, sir.
It shows twenty-four methods. Signed by you. Includes ways
to make people feel humiliated and vulnerable, like 'removal
of clothing.' And ways to terrify them, like 'inducing stress
by use of detainee's fears (e.g. dogs).' Bring in the MWDs!
Military working dogs, sir." They enter snarling at the
ends of taut chains. "The dogs you OKed led to a little
game among the handlers. See who can get the perps to piss and
shit on themselves the fastest."
The dogs lunge, snapping.
Rumsfeld wails and topples backward to the floor. A female agent
pulls his soiled pants off and presses them to his face. "Look
what you've done!" she scolds. "Have you forgotten
your potty training? You're a very bad boy, Donnie. Is this
torture yet?"
"I signed a new list,"
he pleads. "No dogs on it. Nearly two years ago."
"Was that just CYA for
your files? Want to see an FBI email saying the dogs were in
use at Guantanamo just a few months ago?"
"I'm an old man,"
he says, "trying to gather my thoughts."
"You went to war with
the list you had, not the list you wished you had," she
says. "But you eventually gave yourself the list you wished
for. Didn't you, Donnie. The Gang of Three handed you a legal
cover, and you crawled under it"
"What do you mean? I
don't understand," he says.
She grabs his genitals, twists,
and says, "Is this torture yet?" The dogs lunge again.
Fangs slash into his thighs and abdomen.
He shrieks and faints. Guards
drag him out by the feet.
Paul Wolfowitz,
Douglas Feith Deputy Offenses
Cheerleaders for an attack
on Iraq long before 9/11, they seized it as a lever to pry the
country into war from their positions close to Rumsfeld inside
the Pentagon. They also deployed their academic training to
help turn the legalistic fudges pioneered by the Gang of Three
into a defense department memo for Rumsfeld to sign.
It abandoned bounds: The president
may approve any interrogation technique for the sake of national
security. Neither treaties nor U.S. laws against torture can
diminish the commander in chief's supreme authority to do whatever
the country's safety requires. Therefore subordinates, acting
on orders from superiors, may do anything-except what "goes
so far as to be patently unlawful." But what could be unlawful
if presidential authority trumps all law? The list of permissible
methods becomes virtually infinite.
In accord with such logic guards
have prepared this pair of witnesses for their testimony by saturating
them with a welter of drugs thrust into them orally and anally.
They arrive at the Tortugon dazed and staggering.
"Explain your exact roles
in the creation of this memo and similar ones," an inquisitor
commands. Their eyes are dull, speech slurred. Fists smash
into their faces. They sprawl on the floor bleeding and unconscious.
"You refuse to respond? Not even the Eichmann defense?
'I vass only followink orders.'"
Injections revive them. Feith
is chained to a chair in the softening up zone. A bucket of
ice water is dumped on him, and an air conditioner blasts him
with frigid wind. This alternates with a heater set on high.
Wolfowitz is locked in a steel box, which a guard pounds incessantly
with a sledgehammer.
"Be sure to tell us when
you feel anything that could qualify as torture," the
inquisitor says cheerfully.
Richard
Perle Eminence Grise
Like Wolfowitz and Feith he
devoted years to fabricating arguments for attacking Iraq and
stoking fears about vile Saddam. Rotating with oily ease through
government posts in the Pentagon and elsewhere, then think tanks,
then businesses and boards, then back, he became an inspiration
for all who seek to suck wealth from the misfortune of others
in war. And like many eager to assail evils abroad, he turned
abnormally inert and reticent when policies he helped craft soon
delved into practices resembling those very evils.
Guards boot him into the Tortugon,
peel his clothes off, and adorn him with feminine underwear.
They attach electrodes from a large battery to his fingers,
toes, and penis. In preparation for his testimony he was stupefied
with drugs slipped into a truffle and escargot souffle, so he
offers only feeble resistance. They wrap him in an Islamic flag
with a crescent moon and a Koranic inscription. It is draped
to mimic the hooded cloak on the wired figure in crucifixion
pose from the Abu Ghraib photo album. Then they close the switch
on the battery circuit. Spasms wrack Perle and he howlsopen
closespasmshowlsopen They lift him onto a dolly and wheel him,
still cruciform, into the softening up section. The switch operator
accompanies him. Wisps of smoke arise from the skin around the
electrodes.
"Let us know if you sense
anything like torture, Perley Girl," an interrogator calls
out. "If not, we have many other procedures we still need
to test."
David &
Meyrav Wurmser Neocon Ideology Tag Team Wrestlers
Like Perle, David Wurmser has
worked the revolving DC door. Lately he has been vice president
Cheney's chief advisor on the Middle East, and for years before
that he beat on war drums in various posts. His wife Meyrav
has done the same, mostly in think tank and academic settings.
They got the war they desired-and with it came its consequences.
While he was in custody waiting
to testify, a special forces squad broke down the door of his
family house by night and kidnapped his wife. Now in the Tortugon,
he hears through a speaker sounds from a mike where she is captive.
Coarse male voicesspeaking
Arabicher voice pleading"no, no, please no"sound of
ripping clothes"No!!! David, stop them! They want you to
do something. I don't know what exactly. Or they'll. No, don't!!!"screams"Help
me, David. Help me! I'm in a room just down the hall from you"screams
He hurtles himself at the glass
wall, hoping to smash through. But he just bounces off and lands
in a stunned heap. An interrogator bends over him and asks,
"Torture yet?"
Stephen
Cambone Apprentice Capo
Known as Rumsfeld's henchman
and enforcer, this Pentagon under secretary supervised the bureaucracies
trying to wring information out of captives. His appearances
before congressional committees sheepishly inquiring about the
initial reports of prisons run amuck verified his reputation.
He stonewalled the questioners with defiance and deception,
and they dwindled away.
His appearance now portrays
the same qualities. He brushes off the guards escorting him,
tugs off his hood despite handcuffs, and strides down the aisle
and into the Tortugon unbowed.
The inquisitors, noticing assurance
and resistance, immediately converge on him to assert their primacy.
They beat him with fists and sticks, gouge his eyes, spray him
with mace, choke him, throw him to the floor, stomp on his hands
and feet, shatter his knees, break an arm.
"Is this torture?"
they demand. "Is it?"
Though broken and bleeding,
he remains silent and they haul him aside for further treatment.
Major General
Geoffrey Miller The Very Model of a Modern Major General
Commander of the Guantanamo
prison, he advanced to Iraq and his methods migrated with him.
To prepare him for testimony he was laced into a straitjacket
and forced to stand stork-like on one leg for a whole night and
far into the day without food, water, sleep, or access to a latrine.
So upon arrival in the Tortugon his military bearing is somewhat
bent and his uniform reeks. Guards tear off his hood, then his
medals, then his clothes.
"Thirsty, general?"
an interrogator asks. "Hungry?" In a corner sits
a toilet, recently used and unflushed. They prod him there and
thrust his face into the bowl with a splash. "When you're
finished chewing we have some questions."
They yank him up and show him
their thick briefing book. "To the best of our knowledge,"
they explain, "everything we've done during these hearings,
plus more to come, duplicates what those under your command have
done. Is any of it torture?"
"If it was authorized,"
the spluttering general struggles to say, "it was not torture."
"This item looks familiar.
Much like that affair in a New York City police station several
years back. Remember? Led to lawsuits, trials, felony convictions
of cops."
"Rightly so," he
says. "That was a stateside civilian matter. But we have
custody of terrorists. We are protecting civilization from barbarians
and evil doers."
"Don't you mean suspects?
Most of them have never been charged or tried."
"Well, I."
"Did you see the Red Cross
report indicating that a large majority of your inmates were
grabbed more of less at random in roundups and are not specifically
suspected of anything?"
"My recollection of that
is a little hazymaybe"
A guard who has been sweeping
up messes left by earlier questioning walks over and rams the
broom handle up the general's ass. Miller falls to the floor
in convulsions.
The inquisitor pulls out a
broad-tipped marker and scrawls on the bare rump: Torture Yet?
A squad hoists the general and carries him out face down through
the hearing room crowd. The broom sways above him like the flag
atop Iwo Jima.
George W.
Bush Seeming President
The torture testers preferred
that W appear in his Mission Accomplished aircraft carrier flight
suit, an emblem of his commander-in-chief responsibility for
all deeds done by the ranks below. Gonzales, still acting as
presidential counsel, rejected this outfit as prejudicial to
the judiciary committee's deliberations. He proposed a toga
instead. The inquisitors, unsure whether this was serious or
satirical, refused. Gonzales offered a compromise: have the
vice president take W's place, as he had done with the 9/11 investigations.
Since this accorded with the general character of the administration,
they accepted.
Dick Cheney
Nanny-in-Chief
The inquisitors snatch his
hood off and reveal his undaunted grimace of a grin. This gives
them pause but they quickly recover and press ahead.
"Isn't it true, sir, that
in your well-known role as the president's minder you oversaw
all the varied agency efforts intersecting inside the White House
to produce the torture memos?"
Silent sneer.
"Isn't it also true that
you took the lead in creating secret presidential decrees authorizing
certain covert operatives to do almost anything they wished with
prisoners, even unto death?"
"Go fuck yourself."
"Thank you for reminding
me, sir. Our briefing book contains nothing about such an improbable
act, but it does have ones done in a similar spirit."
Agents peel off Cheney's clothes,
fling him to the floor, and pin him there. One mounts him and
starts humping. He squeals like frightened swine.
When it's done they pull him
up, clamp jumper cables on his hands and feet, and switch on
a portable generator. The current sparks muscle contractions
that twist him into spastic, flailing gyrations.
"I don't know about the
rest of you," an interrogator says to his colleagues, "but
having to watch this tortures me. White men just cannot dance."
Cheney funky chickens across
the Tortugon, his lopsided smile stretched into a warped gash
by the current. He clutches at his chest and collapses. The
guards make no attempt to resuscitate him. They simply load
him on a gurney and roll him away, perhaps in a coma, perhaps
dead.
Ann Coulter
Anorexic Albino Vampire
Some of the media's valiant
sofa soldiers are content to spread bile and ire that prime the
consumers to accept war, torture, and whatever other measures
the authorities may aim at the latest designated enemy. But
Coulter is more direct and commanding. She issues WASP fatwas
with a coquettish flounce of her platinum mane.
Guards deliver her to the interrogators
and they remind her about some of these. On the "American
Taliban" John Walker Lindh and his ilk: "We need to
execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate
liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too."
On uppity Muslims: "We should invade their countries,
kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
"Such opinions are widely
circulated through the many outlets available to you," an
inquisitor says. "Do you think they incite attitudes that
make torture acceptable, even attractive?"
"The truth hurts,"
she barks, "and it must be told."
They tug off her hood and are
awed at the cascade of hair that shimmers down. She observes
this and is pleased. They decide she would be an ideal subject
for testing when sexual misconduct and abuse lapse into torture.
The briefing book has a large
selection of examples. They choose several and start to experiment
on her. But they soon stop because it becomes obvious that she's
actually enjoying this.
Instead they tie her to a post,
jab lit cigarettes into her ears, pour lighter fluid over her
hands and ignite it.
"Torture yet?" they
ask as her ears blister and her hands sizzle.
She launches into an ecstatic
rant on the martyrdom of Joan of Arc.
Rush Limbaugh
Prankster
He enters the Tortugon emitting
bluster and bravado. "It's such an honor to meet you,"
an inquisitor says. "I've been a fan of yours since childhood."
Emboldened by this reception
Rush confides, "They kept me kneeling on rough cement for
a couple days before I came in here. Knees are killing me.
You have anything that could, you know, take the edge off the
pain for a friend."
The fan brings a medicine tray.
Rush glances furtively around, sees only himself reflected in
the one-way glass, and smiles. He snatches and swallows a fistful
of pills.
"You said on your radio
show that the things done at Abu Ghraib were just fraternity
pranks," the fan reminds him.
"Sure did," Rush
confirms, "and I'm certified as 98.7% accurate in everything
I say."
"So you'll help us verify
that these were not torture?"
"Sure will," says
Rush, feeling no pain.
An agent approaches carrying
a chemical flashlight of the type used to sodomize inmates at
Abu Ghraib. He comes from a wasted stretch of Appalachia where
he worked for an Enron subsidiary now dissolved, along with his
job and his pension. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Limbaugh.
My name is Buster. Been listening to you for the longest time.
Ever heard of the place where the sun don't shine? Well, it's
about to."
Buster has always been a thorough
worker. Rush bellows in pain and shame and sinks senseless to
the floor, whether from the prank or the pills is not clear.
Janitors load him in a trash bag and tote him out.
Bill O'Reilly
Vicarious Warrior and Connoisseur of Adult Amusements
Before the inquisitors can
begin to question him he erupts in a tirade denouncing them and
the judiciary committee for succumbing to the liberals' hate-America
agenda and for abandoning the troops under fire in harm's way
by casting doubt upon their dedication to patriotic American
values and for
At a signal from the interrogators
a Lynndie England look-alike steps forward, cigarette drooping
from a corner of her mouth. In one hand is a dog leash, in the
other a loofa made of steel wool. She's wearing a tool belt
bristling with an assortment of other implements.
O'Reilly blanches and pulls
out a cell phone. He punches in the number of the legal department
at Fox network headquarters: "Your call is very important
to us. All of our staff are currently assisting."
He retreats toward the softening
up sector with the dominatrix and a phalanx of guards in pursuit.
William
Kristol - Agitpropagandist
No one did more than Kristol
and The Weekly Standard he edits to stoke phony
fears about Saddam's Iraq and to construct rationales for attacks
on unruly Muslims. After years of striving, the war he yearned
for finally arrived. The attendant treatment of prisoners did
not truly trouble him. During the election campaign he applauded
W's interrogation methods for being "rougher than what John
Kerry would approve of." And his magazine has been a persistent
agitator for more exacting standards of personal responsibility.
These two stances made him seem an especially appropriate subject
for testing the definition of torture.
At first inside the Tortugon
he displays that broad smile familiar from his frequent stints
as a talking TV head. It looks like he's trying far too hard
to appear friendly and nice. An agent cocks a hand back poised
to slap Kristol's face and the smile wilts.
"Torture!" he whimpers.
"Torture. I can feel it already. Stop!"
"We don't believe you,"
they chorus in reply. "We already knew you're a wuss, but
you're not that big a wuss. You haven't even been hit yet."
"Psychological torture,"
he whines. "That's even worse."
They shove him to the floor,
circle around, and piss on him. He's dripping when they stuff
him into a small wooden crate and nail the lid shut.
"Tell us when you're ready
to give honest answers," they shout at the box. The only
response is sobs.
Rupert Murdoch
Hypnotist
The cuffed and hooded global
media mogul is apoplectic when tossed into the Tortugon. Any
setting he does not steer and control strikes him as contrary
to Nature.
Interrogators ask him why the
news personnel of his networks and papers seem incapable of speaking
or writing the T word, no matter how hideous the facts they are
reporting. His operations are noted for their direction from
the top. Perhaps if he learned about torture from personal experience
he could return and give them more accurate guidance.
He can only sputter in response.
They poke him aside with batons,
remove the hood, and strap him into a chair. Around it they
place a dazzling strobe light to flash straight into his face
and speakers to blast the collected works of Rage Against the
Machine and Eminem into his ears.
"Torture?" they ask.
"If not, we'll be back."
Liberal
Media Tutti Toady Choir
An investigative report by
an army general last summer explicitly acknowledged that inmates
had been tortured at Abu Ghraib. Emails later pried loose by
the ACLU from the FBI said the same regarding their agents' observations
in Guantanamo. A New York Times story about this did
include the T word-but only when quoting the email. The headline
sanitized the events to "Abuse"; the reporters' words
describing these appalling events spoke of "mistreatment,"
"abuse", and "harsh tactics." The T word
had been deleted from their vocabulary. A long Los Angeles
Times editorial detailed these "cascading allegations
of prisoner abuse" but could not bear to insert the T word
until the final sentence.
Into the Tortugon troop the
entire editorial and news executive corps of the New York and
Los Angeles Times. "You are professional journalists,"
an interrogator taunts. "Why can you not name things accurately?
Why can you not match the honesty and courage of reports by
the army and the FBI?"
They grope into a huddle and
babble.
"Is it because you cherish
your White House press passes and banquet invitations too much?
Because you fawn upon the sovereign and seek his favor even
more than the military and the police do?"
Huddle and babble.
"Does your failure to
tell the plain truth make you co-dependent enablers of behavior
you should be exposing instead?"
Huddle and babble.
Guards converge, slice off
their clothes and hoods with knives, and start piling the naked
journalists into a pyramid. Some are bent into oral sex postures.
Others are ordered to masturbate. The journalists have been
so domesticated for so long that they comply with hardly a murmur
of protest.
Torture yet?
They are marched into the softening
up quarter for further studies in logomachy.
Rev. Pat
Robertson, Rev. Jerry Falwell, William Bennett Moralists
The apostles of absolute moral
values enter befuddled. Kicks and profane screams have jarred
them awake every time they dozed off for the past three days.
Nor have they been allowed
to bathe or shave. Rather than the Lord's anointed, they look
and smell like the Fallen and they know it.
"Gentlemen," the
grandest of the inquisitors greets them, "you have exalted
yourselves into guides and exemplars for the rest of us benighted.
You converse personally, by your own testimony, with the Almighty
Creator of everything unto the ends of the universe. He reveals
to you the nature of good and evil, and you then instruct us."
They nod and smile.
"Therefore we are perplexed
and dismayed. You have been swift and sulfurous in denouncing
transgressions here and abroad. Yet when leaders of your own
earthly beliefs and faction conduct or condone abominations,
your vision dims and your voice falters. You abandon your moral
clarity and become backsliders into relativism."
Faced with a skeptic instead
of the usual adoring faithful, they are confounded.
The guards pounce and strip
them bare. One swings a water bottle into Bennett's jaw so hard
that the plastic cracks and claws a bloody furrow across his
chin. Another pistol whips Falwell, presses the barrel against
his temple, and pulls the trigger. Click. Then he loads it
and turns it to Robertson's head.
Torture yet?
They throw the three divines
down and chain them to yokes in the floor with their heads aligned
toward Mecca.
"Allahu akbar. Say it!"
Silence.
The guards lash their backs
and butts with metal rods.
"Say it!"
"Allahu akbar," they
murmur.
"Louder!"
A guard opens a vial and dribbles
searing chemicals across their lacerated backs.
"ALLAHU AKBAR! ALLAHU
AKBAR!"
"Excellent," the
inquisitor says. "And now your prayer of redemption. Repeat
after me: Jesus was the bastard son of a slut."
They cannot.
The guards stoop over and start
ripping out their fingernails with pliers.
"JESUS WAS THE BASTARD
SON OF A SLUT!" they howl to high heaven.
Torture yet?
Alan Dershowitz
Torture Titrator
This Harvard law professor
was summoned to the Tortugon under special circumstances: not
to help define where torture starts but where it should stop.
He has advocated placing torture under judicial restraints.
It now occurs covertly and haphazardly without proper supervision.
If judges could issue "torture warrants"-but only
in very specific and extremely threatening situations-then torture
would become a useful protective device.
"I did not advocate that,"
Dershowitz shouts before the interrogators even ask about it.
"I said we should bring torture into the open, frankly
debate it, but not necessarily decide to legalize it."
"You advocated exactly
that in Israel," an interrogator says.
"Israel is a special case,"
Dershowitz lectures. "Exceptions must be made on its behalf."
"Why not for America also?
Aren't we special too? Don't we have enemies? Doesn't everybody?"
"Well, perhapsbutanyway,
I only advocated tightly controlled, non-lethal types of torture,"
Dershowitz says.
"How would you know for
sure what's lethal? On the screen in your waiting cage you saw
what happened to Cheney. Anyone could have a bad heart or some
other fatal weakness. We could try a succession of torture techniques
on you and eventually confirm that."
"No, wait!" the law
professor pleads. "Let's analyze this, be reasonable and
prudent."
"Yes, maybe we should
give you a break to rethink your opinions about all this,"
says the inquisitor. "That would be civil."
Agents sling Dershowitz into
the softening up zone. They bend him into an excruciating backward
bow with ropes from ankles to shoulders and start injecting him
with a series of brain scrambling drugs. Soon he will be squirming
in his own excrement. In a day or two he will be raving and
yanking his hair out in clumps, much more demented than usual.
If he lives that long.
Supplemental
Roster
There is no shortage of additional
potential witnesses with qualifications similar to those above.
If it appears their testimony could be helpful, they will be
summoned at the committee's discretion before the final witness.
Alberto
Gonzales Tonto, LL.D.
A black clad honor guard in
visored helmets kicks and punches the star witness, W's hooded
nominee for attorney general, through the throng in the hearing
room. They pitch him headlong into the Tortugon. Much of it
is filled with the many previous witnesses still being tested
to discover the meaning of torture. Their torments present a
sadistic carnival sideshow of humiliation, pain, injury, and
fear punctuated with groans and screams.
An interrogator lifts up Gonzales,
draws off his hood, and reaches out as if to shake the cuffed
hands. Instead he wrenches the thumbs back until Gonzales yelps.
Guards peel every thread of
his clothing off and hang him by his cuffs from a hook in the
ceiling.
The interrogator opens the
briefing book, flips through some pages for the prospective chief
law enforcement officer of America to see and says, "Many
of these techniques are already being assessed." He gestures
toward the purgatory in the softening up sector of the Tortugon.
"Some we have reserved for you."
An agent carrying an enema
apparatus steps behind Gonzales, whose eyes bulge when the tube
stabs in. As he writhes in pain and shame he pivots on the hook
and sees the camera lenses watching and remembering everything.
When the tube comes out a putrid mess oozes down his legs and
drips off his feet.
"We will test the remaining
techniques on you," the inquisitor continues. "And
if we get inconclusive results on any of those already applied
to other witnesses, we will try them again with you as the definitive
subject. This is fitting and proper, as I'm sure you'll agree,
since these techniques are the progeny of your own memos. At
the end we will compile the results from all witnesses. Then
we'll know with detailed certainty what is torture and what is
not, because you and the others will have told us."
"Save me, Jesus!"
Gonzales cries out. "I've been your good and faithful servant.
Why have you forsaken me? Why?"
There is no answer.
Guards take him down from the
hook and his day of judgment begins.
Chicken
Hawk Soup for the Soul
Although Gonzales feels utterly
abandoned, hundreds of millions-perhaps billions-globally would
actually be fixated on his fate. The days of testing other witnesses
will build audience numbers toward the climactic scourging of
W's chosen one on this genuine reality show. TV ratings will
spike to levels never previously registered for public affairs
programs.
These broadcasts will have
everything the audience craves: violence, sex, perversion, and
the wanton exercise of arbitrary authority. And the FCC will
indulge in no hissy fit to censor them. This is not some wardrobe
malfunction during a football halftime entertainment; this is
news vital to the open operation of democratic institutions.
Just as church and state must not mingle, so entertainment and
news must not. These are sincere broadcasts in the public interest,
and the FCC would certainly recognize that. Incidentally, they
will also attract more advertisers-of the rather edgy sort-at
higher rates than anything but the Super Bowl.
So the show will go on and
it will vanquish apathy. It will be the daily hot topic in homes,
workplaces, social gatherings, and houses of worship across the
land. Both the prurient and the prudish, often overlapping categories,
will be fascinated. Teachers in high school civics classes will
radiate satisfaction at seeing their pupils eagerly paying attention
to hearings on the nomination of a government official. This
degenerate spectacle hosted by the senate judiciary committee
will be more dramatic than the Watergate hearings, more scandalous
than Clarence and Anita, more sordid than Bill and Monica. The
public will adore it. An uplifting example of your tax dollars
at work!
And this torture test will
even benefit the witnesses who have foolishly brought events
to their current state. By their tribulations in the Tortugon
they can finally perform a useful function.
They cannot do anything requiring
them to exhibit the courage of their convictions. To do that
they would need courage and convictions; they have neither.
Instead they excel at careerist maneuvers along the up escalator
and at acquisitive exertions. They are yellow grubbers for power
and moolah.
Most of them are of an age
that would have made them fit for fighting during the war in
Vietnam-but most of them did not. Slick Willie Clinton at least
declared his opposition to that war while finagling ways to keep
himself out of it. But this bunch supported the war while scrounging
up deferments and evasions for themselves. And the few who did
sign up, like W, usually got safe assignments that gave them
the trappings of military service without the hazards of combat.
Submitting to the torture test
would provide them an opportunity to redeem themselves. They
are mostly such craven chicken hawk weenies that they will quail
and capitulate very early in the testing. They will declare
themselves suffering from torture long before any grave damage
is done to them.
This will set a very restrictive
U.S. standard for what captors may do to captives, and that will
become the template for world standards. Then when Americans
are taken prisoner these standards will shield them too from
torture. In this way the Washington, media, and religious potentates-ardent
and careless about sending soldiers off everywhere to wage perpetual
war-will at last have done something themselves which they constantly
tell others to do: support the troops.
David Underhill was a radio talk show host for many
years in Mobile, Alabama until he was fired last spring after
repeated failures to rectify his persistent political incorrectness.
He can be contacted at drunderhill@yahoo.com.
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