Fwd: Why Torture Makes Sense (to George)

[Guest guest]

Published on Monday, November 14, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

The Sun's Not Yellow, It's Chicken: Why Torture Makes Perfect Sense to the

Commander-in-Chief

by Steven Laffoley

 

While listening to the President denying its use, I find myself thinking about

American torture. And I ask myself, " At what point does a tortured man 'break'?

Is it the moment when he hears his twisted arm snap behind his back? Or is it,

perhaps, the moment when he sees the frayed electrical cord

draw blood from his beaten skin? Or maybe it's when he feels the creeping

dread of pain promised after hours without sleep, squatting on a cold cement

floor, hearing the sound of footfalls moving menacingly down the hall? "

These questions are not born of morbid curiosity. Rather, these are

practical questions, the banal stuff of present day American politics and

policies. Because, despite the President's pale claims to the contrary, the

American government does, in fact, condone the use of torture. The President

himself makes this clear when he promises to veto any bill that " makes it

illegal to practice the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or

punishment " of people. And certainly his Vice President makes no apologies

for the American use of torture, when he bluntly says, " Sometimes you gotta

play rough. "

So, why does the American government use torture? When I consider the

question, two possible answers occur to me: 'dark logic' and 'madness.'

In the 'dark logic' answer, torture is not so much a means to an end as it

is, in fact, the end itself. Consider, no one in the Bush administration

truly believes that torture yields timely or even useful information - nor

would they care if it did. The only true value of torture - a value well

understood by thugs like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and now

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney - is that torture terrifies people. Lots of

people. It creates a deep, lasting, irrational fear of national authority: a

fear felt both by the enemy abroad and by citizens at home. And,

historically speaking, it is disturbingly effective.

But the 'dark logic' theory suggests that the Bush administration is

rational - albeit darkly rational. And, frankly - and let's be honest here -

there's not enough evidence of 'rational behavior' in the Bush

Administration to support this. The other, more plausible, reason for the

existence of American torture is this: 'madness.'

However, the more I consider 'madness' as the reason behind American

torture, the more I am disturbed by what this 'madness' has to say, not only

about George W. Bush and his administration, but also about the American

people since September 11, 2001.

When I think of America's new embrace of torture, I am reminded of Bob

Dylan's Tombstone Blues. Listen as Dylan sings: " John the Baptist, after

torturing a thief, looks up to his hero, the commander-in-chief, saying,

'Tell me great hero, but please make it brief. Is there a hole for me to get

sick in?' "

Americans in the post 9/11 Age of Unreason are Dylan's metaphoric John the

Baptist after their mass conversion to President Bush's absolutist religion:

'You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.'

Lest we be deemed 'with the terrorists,' we marched blindly behind the

Commander-in-Chief, a would-be messiah who promised us deliverance from our

perceived enemies and fears. Under his leadership, we willingly destroyed

nations and murdered people - by the thousands, and then by the tens of

thousands - in the hopes that our enemies would be vanquished and our fears

finally dispelled.

But instead, over time, the Commander-in-Chief only dredged up more enemies

and more fears from our collective imagination. And consequently, over time,

the dead bodies only continued mounting. And consequently, over time, we

descended into an immoral black hole, with no way out.

It was then, with blind rage and near religious righteousness, that we

started torturing others. It was then, in the darkest of ironies, that we

become the enemy we feared.

Searching for the hole to get sick in, Dylan's John the Baptist looks up.

" The Commander-in-Chief answers him, while chasing a fly, 'Death to all

those who would whimper and cry.' And dropping a barbell, he points to the

sky, saying, 'The sun's not yellow; it's chicken.' "

As with Dylan's John the Baptist, we also look up after torturing the enemy,

and stare into vacuum of the Commander-in-Chief's eyes. And as he looks back

at us, we suddenly understand the President madness: he thrives on our

fears.

And our gorge rises.

We look back into the hole and find ourselves getting sick, left alone with

our innocence and ethics gone, left alone with only Macbeth's lament to

speak: " Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? "

And we weep when we realize - no, it won't.

Steven Laffoley is an American writer living in Halifax, He is the author of

Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of

Unreason. E-mail: stevenlaffoley or steven_laffoley.