In the old days, before political correctness grabbed our imaginations, we used to glibly refer to "the Chinese water torture," acting as though we somehow knew what that actually meant. We supposed it was something like the heartless dripping of a faucet, which is something we've all experienced. We also used to laugh heartily at the prospect of torture manifesting itself as imprisonment in a dark cage and being subjected to the unending, repetitive playing of "She wore an itsy-bitsy, teeney-weeney, yellow polka-dot bikini" over a tinny loudspeaker, thereby creating an earworm that would plague us long after the song itself had ceased. These tortures were, of course, more mental than physical. We would often pretend we were being tortured by our mere juxtaposition to a person or social situation we did not like. Ah, those days of torture; how elusive and implausible they were.
Now we are being asked to define torture for real---in our country, as a national security practice, as a community of diverse opinions and beliefs, and in our individual consciences. Torture asks the question: "What would shock the conscience?"
Torture is currently being animatedly discussed by everyone, but perhaps not yet very rationally or effectively, on three simultaneous levels:
1. Is it moral?
2. Is it legal?
3. Is it effective?
My opinion is that it is none of those things. What is your opinion?
Waterboarding seems to head the list of tortures being discussed and denied. It is a practice that was used to interrogate 9/11 detainees at Gitmo and prisoners in Iraq. Is waterboarding torture? Some say it is not because it doesn't cause any "lasting harm." How do we know that it doesn't cause any lasting harm? We don't.
Some say also that waterboarding is a technique that merely simulates drowning. Journalist Christopher Hitchens subjected himself to waterboarding to see what it was like. Even though his voluntary waterboarding was done under strictly supervised conditions and he had a panic button he could press when he reached a point of uncomfortability with the experience, his conclusion is that waterboarding "...is actual drowning that simulates death." That is quite a different point of view.
Sean Hannity, one of the conservative bloviators on FOX News, stated that he would happily undergo waterboarding just to prove to "the folks" that it was not torture. Thus far, there have been no reliable reports that he has made good on his boastful offer. Let's see if he ever does. He and others of his ilk continue to trivialize the seriousness of this discussion by referring to torture as "enhanced interrogation techniques."
For those who do not consider waterboarding to be torture, they should undergo it just for the hell of it to check it out.
Tickling as torture. How many videos have gone around the internet about babies and their family mercilously being the catalyst to their most selfish reaction, the baby giggling but clearly tired of it. How many of us have been tickled by a well-meaning (or not so) family member who just wouldn't stop? Do we have some kind of deep-seeded need to control other people and it manifests in these "harmless" ways? Who has had a brother or sister sit on top of them outside with a handful of grass or dirt, ready to plonk it down our throats if our mouths open to scream or cry out? This kind of stuff is the fodder for future acting out and could precede real violence and harkens to another essay about bullying. You can look back on all of these school shootings and you will find some kind of allowable and accepted form of torture or bullying as a precedent. I never liked tickling. I find it just as cruel as if one were being intentionally hurt, or not so unintentional as it turns out.
ReplyDelete