High Time for Torture

We Americans developed a very good manual for torturing "leftist rebels," i.e. anyone who opposes "free trade" and organizes themselves enough to be a threat

When Jonathan Swift wrote "A Modest Proposal" in 1729, suggesting that the poor eat their own children and thereby solve the twin problems of poverty and hunger, the obvious satire was missed by some who actually supported his proposal. The same danger exists with "High Time for Torture," a satirical piece that reveals the absurdity of torture as a sanctioned policy by extending it to its logical limits. The writer, an American author and speaker who explores the implications of technology, religion, and science for 21st century life, evokes vivid images of using torture in the workplace and the home to show that torture flourishes only when people can not hear, see or smell its real-life consequences for flesh-and-blood human beings. This article is a non-ideological cry of outrage.

Torture is all the rage these days, getting plenty of ink in the liberal press, as if it's something new. It's not. We have been torturing one another for centuries. Our intelligence professionals have perfected the means and the methods and have created opportunities for learning how to do it right. Torture, from beating, lacerating, electrocuting, raping and breaking individuals in hell holes to quietly standing aside while genocide takes place, is ho hum. By treating it as something special, the discussion of appropriate policies governing torture has been distorted.

Hence this essay to right that wrong.

First of all, torture is widely practiced. We Americans developed a very good manual for torturing "leftist rebels," i.e. anyone who opposes "free trade" and organizes themselves enough to be a threat, and we trained people in how to do it. I spoke to someone recently who had wandered into torture training classes complete with chalk diagrams on the blackboard and arrows pointing out pressure points. I talked to an interrogator from Guantanamo who smiled and shook his head when presented with government statements about the humane treatment of "enemy combatants." So let's stop talking about Abu Ghraib and related "atrocities," as they are called by the leftwing media, as if they are anomalous. Atrocities are not anomalous. They're as common as fumbles when the Packers are playing.

Secondly, despite a significant number of voices in the chorus proclaiming that torture is not a good interrogation technique (let's face it, when the electricity is coursing through your genitals and the man in the black hood asks if you want some more, you'll say anything to staunch the juice; and the best interrogators say they prefer what is called the Scharff method after the sophisticated NAZI interrogator Hans Joachim Scharff who showed how empathy, understanding, and patience often turned the most recalcitrant captive into a good source of information) despite all that, torture must be good for more than recreation because even those who say it's ineffective continue to authorize, execute, and cover up its use.

Now, part of that may be the fun factor. Totally dominating another human being can be fun. One source explained that torture has long been practiced in other countries with Americans as coaches (to use the current buzzword), if not participants. He named a lot of countries where we did this, including El Salvador, Cambodia, Chile, Iran, South Vietnam, Guatemala, Argentina, Israel, and Egypt. We could double that list, at least, with countries in our own hemisphere (the Monroe Doctrine gives us permission to do that, and now the Monroe Doctrine is applied to the world and beyond, we apply it to space all the way out to the asteroid belt). For some, torture is just work. But for others, torture is fun.

Take the Uzbeks, for example. One source with a long history in military intelligence said it was a novelty when the Uzbeks learned that one purpose of torture might be to elicit information.

But I digress.  The point I want to make is that we have been engaged in torturing people directly or through proxies, here, there and everywhere, for so long, that torture ought to commend itself to all thinking individuals as an appropriate methodology for (1) getting the truth out of people quickly and efficiently, and (2) disciplining unruly children and adults alike, as is when is.

I propose that we apply the lessons of torture in ways consistent with our actual practice, not with the cover stories we invent so the squeamish can sleep at night.

Torture should be used first in the basements of police stations, in prisons, and in schools, places where we have nearly total control over prisoners, inmates and students now. Torture has been in fact routinely practiced in many of those places and when, for example, white police attach wires to a black man and let the good times flow, subsequent protestations are widely ignored. So this extension of current practice would be a seamless splice.