Torture

Thanks to the handful of you that responded to the taxation poll, now removed. It looked like your standard bell curve. Same tax for all and a progressive percentage on the fringes but most favoring the same percentage for all. I wanted you to know I hadn't forgotten my promise to finish my taxing discussion. In time. Torture's the topic du jour. For you lassies, I'd particularly like your man-folk to read what follows.

I would love to provide you my own arguments regarding torture, but when someone else who writes tons better than you do pretty well blankets the topic in one succinct column, I'd simply be quoting that guy left and right. To that end, I commend to you Charles Krauthammer's superb take on torture here.

One aspect I'd like to emphasize: word's mean things. You see, my idea of torture does not constitute torture. One evening of MSNBC with Olbermann following Maddow following Matthews would be enough to get me to hand over bank account numbers and what remains of my IRAs. I can't much stomach Greta and she's on Fox. Having to sit through what vied for Best Picture at this year's Oscars might do it, too, though I have heard good things about Slumdog Millionaire. Not much else.

Nonetheless, none of these assaults against humanity constitute torture. Neither does commode flushing the Koran. Nor heaping Muslims into a sodomite pile.

The torture of John McCain is not the "enhanced interrogation" of Gitmo terrorists (oops, detainees...oops, not-quite-yet-citizens-of-the-US). Thirty years ago when someone spoke of torture, bodily damage came to mind. Dislocated shoulders and broken arms. Bamboo shoots 'neath the fingernails. Psychological techniques intended to destroy the mind. Much of what was unleashed upon Americans by North Korea and North Vietnam (what's up with the North? Their giving us Al Franken, too.) was punitive in nature. Sure if they could get a little info, too, that was just gravy on the rice, but oh, the joy of unleashing one's full wrath upon the western imperialists.

Such hellishness is not our way. Were the techniques of Gitmo made plain to Hanoi Hilton survivors, they would, to a man I surmise, have preferred to be in the hands of American interrogators.

That said, the questioning techniques preferred by Nancy, Hillary, Harry, and the rest of the Oprah rabble wouldn't get Rachel Ray to cough up a new recipe. So, to get a good take on torture, stop reading my ramblings and go treat your mind to Krauthammer.

UPDATE: From my Facebook page (what a geek!). An article, similar content by Thomas Sowell (here). Another guy who few can say it better than. Worth your five minutes. My two cents.