“It’s torture with only half the fat”
“The United State does not do torture,” President Bush has declared, and I am inclined to agree. Torture is such a powerful word and really looks bad when attached to starch, unflattering rumors of secret CIA prisons around the world. I prefer the term used by top CIA interrogators today, “torture lite.” It sounds like a malt shake with only half the carbs and caffeine of the “regular brand,” and I’m all for it. After all, research successfully shows that shocking a man’s genitals is more likely to result in erroneous information rather than say, dressing him up like a cow girl and forcing him to ride on a pig’s back for twelve hours.
Sure, it may sound silly, but this whacky brand of “enhanced interrogation” may have been key in foiling a terrorist plot by 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Torture lite defender, Senator Kit Bond claims, “we’re talking about the most successful intelligence gained in the war on terror coming from these programs.” Mohammad al-Qatani’s handlers at Guantanamo Bay prison received permission from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to force him to perform dog tricks under collar and leash, wear a woman’s bra and thong and dance with a male interrogator. If this doesn’t paint of flattering portrait of the Bush Administration, then I’m not sure what will.
Other techniques of the Bush administration endorsed “program” include water boarding (dripping water over a cloth on the prisoner’s face to create the effect of drowning), putting a smelly bag over the prisoner’s head, and leaving prisoners naked in cold, dark rooms for hours at a time. With all due respect to the opponents of these methods, they have proven highly effective in supplying us with the information on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, which we subsequently used to invade. Granted, Iraq didn’t really have any Weapons of Mass Destruction, but the Bush’s advanced interrogation policy (in this case, “renditions”, which involves handing prisoners over to countries with more lenient torture laws) did provide us with the opportunity to invade.
“We have to work the dark side, if you will,” says Vice President Dick Cheney, paying homage to the familiar character of Darth Vader from ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’ “If you only knew the power of the dark side.”
Despite its obvious effectiveness, Senator John McCain remains insistent that torture of any degree only demeans the American culture. “It’s killing us. It’s killing us,” claims the presidential hopeful, whose bill to ban “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of prisoners was passed last month. Former president Jimmy Carter has also rallied against the Bush administration for refusing to prosecute any CIA interrogation which did not result in “organ failure” or “death.” “There’s not a single major human rights organization in the world that’s not now condemning America as one of the foremost violators of basic human rights,” he said in an interview with Chris Matthews.
Still, even if torture lite is degrading, inhumane, doesn’t yield results, and makes us look bad, you’ve got to admit that watching prisoners prance around in women’s stockings is still pretty good for a laugh. Isn’t it?
Eric Jones
Columnist
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Nov 18 2005. Filed under Opinion.
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