Brain Lemon

It looks like we're at it again – caterwauling about so-called torture, this time brought on by the Obama administration's unnecessary and politically-motivated release of top secret CIA memos.  Once again this president has made a national security decision based getting good PR, and has opened the door for what will surely be an ugly series of hearings, inquisitions, and if certain people get their way, criminal proceedings.  As we've seen every time this subject comes up, sanctimonious senators race to the microphone to declare how horrified they are by our sins, how we should be above such things, and how these acts make us no different from the terrorists we are fighting.

First of all, based on the information we have seen revealed, we need to take a serious look at the techniques described and ask ourselves the honest question – is this really what we would describe as torture?  To me it sounds more like "unpleasant treatment" – surely no worse than we voluntarily subjugate ourselves to on shows such as Fear Factor simply for the pursuit of fame and money.  For God's sake, I've seen people on such shows covered in scorpions, and the worst of the so-called torture methods is putting someone in a box with a caterpillar?  Not only does this mock real torture (which, honestly, waterboarding MAY be argued to be, though I wouldn't), but it makes us looks like wimps.  Surely al Queda and most of the world looks at our methods and laughs, as we are kinder to terrorist murderers than they would be to a petty thief.

Which brings up the other insanity of this whole thing – I find it profoundly offensive that we seem so ready to compare ourselves to terrorist killers, as if our methods come anywhere near hacking off people's limbs and heads.  Also insulting is the idea that terrorists will treat us any differently if we are more gentle when we capture them.  No terrorist who believes it is Allah's will to blow himself up in a school is going to reconsider after some politicians get up and smugly state how morally superior we are for not playing loud music or keeping you awake.  I can't imagine any Taliban pamphlets are encouraging acts of terror against those infidels who dare to turn the thermostat down too low.

The whole thing just makes me mad, because I think at root the torture issue in general was mainly designed to embarass America and the Bush administration.  But now that Bush is gone, what remains of that motive?  Do we really want, in the middle of economic turmoil and war, to enter into nasty, partisan show trials against lawyers who were merely offering their legal opinion?  Do we want to condemn those in the military and intelligence services who were just trying to keep us safe?  And in the end, do we value European fondness and self-righteous satisfaction above fighting terror with every tool we have?  All of these questions seem ignored as partisans prepare for the ugliness ahead.  So much for hope and change, yet again.