Interrogation

How many of you remember the scene in The Punisher (the good one with Thomas Jane) where he’s questioning his “prisoner”? You know, when he’s got the blow torch and he’s describing to the guy what he’s going to feel when he gets burned with it. How he won’t feel it burn him, it’ll register as being cold. Then he asks the guy a question and when he denies he knows anything…he sticks a popsicle to his back, making him think he’s been burned.

Sounds funny, huh? But what about when our government uses waterboarding (where a persons body is tricked into thinking it’s drowning)? Or how about putting the suspected terrorists in a box with a caterpillar and telling them it’s something that could hurt them? Or how about sticking a lit cigarette behind their ear, not touching them but getting awfully close? These seem like things an older brother would do to torment their younger brother. There is no actual physical harm. Only emotional distress. And a physician is present at all times. And if said physician deems it necessary, the procedure will stop and the detainee will be treated. BTW, waterboarding is done to our own troops to prepare them in case they get captured. So if we do this to our own soldiers, why do terrorists deserve better? Especially if information obtained will save thousands, if not millions, of lives?

If you don’t agree with it, how would you have gone about getting the information that led to the disruption of the 9/11-style attack on the west coast? And if what they did was illegal, which it was Congress (Repubs and Dems) who said what was and wasn’t torture, why aren’t we going after those lawmakers? And if you read the memos, you’ll see there was no actual torture. Not if you use common sense.

• Ooh, they got slapped in the face. How dare they slap them!
• We really shouldn’t deprive these guys of sleep. They need their rest.
• And walling, if you’ve read the description of this, it’s amusing. It’s like wrestling and movies: using amplified sound to make you think the impact is worse than it really is.
• The facial hold. Very torturous. Holding the face still with open hands and the fingers away from the eyes.
• The attention grasp: grabbing their collars and pulling them towards you. Makes me sick to my stomach…
• Wall standing. I think I had to do that in P.E. You remember, you stand facing a wall and support your weight with your hands. I used to do push-ups like this.

This is what we’re going to prosecute the Bush administrations advisors for? Not the people that actually did it, but the ones who put it out there. If this is torture, I need to report my brother to the authorities. He used to hold me down and act like he was going to spit on me. He’d let it dangle and get closer to my face. And just when it was about to hit me, he sucked it back up. I wasn’t actually spat on, but there was emotional distress. So somebody call Eric Holder. Gimme a break people.

If I recall correctly, after these memos were unclassified Obama said he wasn’t interested in prosecuting the individuals involved. But 25 hours later, he changed his tune saying he would leave it up to the Attorney General. And, in my opinion, we wouldn’t be having this discussion if it wasn’t for the left wing extremist in Spain who brought the charges against the Bush administration officials.

You know, Obama touts Spains efforts in creating jobs in renewable energy. What he doesn’t metion is that, according to a Universidad Rey Juan Carlos study, for every one job created, up to 2.2 jobs will be lost elsewhere in the economy. Doesn’t sound like a balanced ratio to me. My point for this is that perhaps there’s another agenda other than justice which changed Obama’s mind. He shifts his position so much on so many issues, it’s like he has a focus group telling him what he should do. Perhaps it was Moveon.org who inspired him to reverse his position. Perhaps it was his idolation of Spain which caused him to follow suit and bring up the possibility of prosecution. I don’t know what changed his mind, but I’m not certain justice is the only thing guiding his decision.

disclaimer: I don’t believe the ends always justify the means. But when our democratically elected Congress (and that means you, Nancy Pelosi) has clearly stated what can be done within the law, how can you even think about prosecuting those that advised on these methods?