OBSERVATION: When can we have torture back?

I have a silly notion.

I think when we need critical, life-saving information from maniacal terrorists who slaughter children, decapitate prisoners for showing on You Tube and blow up shopping markets to make sure they kill families -- aaaaaand who think these atrocities will get them any number of horny virgins for their eternal gratification – the information is not likely to be gotten by simply giving them a piece of paper with ten pertinent questions, like some high school exam. Nor do I believe that they will be induced to spill the beans on the next terrorist attack by making their stay in military custody comparable to a weekend at a Comfort Inn. Appealing to their conscience is as likely as finding Sharon Stone's panties. There is no such thing.

Sooooo … how do you get the information?

Only two ways. Either you start hurting them until they are crippled, mutilated or dead, or you credibly and literally scare the shit out of them without doing permanent harm. That’s it. Take your choice. Now I personally think a mix of fear and pain without permanent disability is about the right place to be.

This brings me to the “standing room” only prison chamber** and waterboarding. These are getting a lot of criticism from the Amnesty International crowd. And for what?

The “standing room only” prison cell forces the incarceree to stand for as long as he is locked in place – sometimes for many hours. Now that may not seem like much of a torture (and I personally think it is not), it does get pretty damn uncomfortable and, yes, even painful. According to studies, however, no one made to endure this little information gathering technique has ever died or been seriously injured.

As an alternative to the tall small cell, we could just hire them as sales clerks, who stand on the feet for hours. Hey! Then we could make all those guys wear high heels. Oh. But that would insult their dignity. According to the feel good torture crowd, insulting dignity is another offense against mankind. Let me remind you again. These are the folks who blow up children. How dignified is that?

Waterboarding is a technique that triggers some sort of fear-of-drowning reflex. You tie the guy down (almost never women), place a towel over his face and pour water over the towel. Again, it is a technique that does not produce injury or death. There have been reports of a couple heart attacks, but I say every profession has its risks, and terrorism should not be exempt.

By the way, this is also the technique my mother used to rinse my hair when I was a wee toddler. I was made to hold the terry cloth rag over my eyes and face as she poured clean water over my soapy hair. Maybe that's it. We soap up there hair first and just call it a CIA shampoo. That way, instead of torturing them, we are actually pampering them. The libs ought to like that ... eh?

Just so you understand just how dangerous and horrific waterboarding is, consider this. The producer of a movie that will include a waterboarding scene under went the experience to better understand it. Promoters of a so-called waterboarding “thrill ride” at Coney Island will hype their enterprise by subjecting themselves to the technique on stage for the entertainment of the audience.

(This gives me an idea. Why don’t we subject terrorists to an endless loop ride on the “Superman” rollercoaster at Six Flags, or more appropriately the “Tower of Terror” at Universal Studios. No…no. Better yet. Strap them to the seat and run them through Disney’s “It’s a Small World” ride until the crack. I am betting that by the third time they beg for waterboarding.) If waterboarding was any less scary it would be sanctioned by the teachers’ union as an in-school discipline technique.

I am sorry. I do not think we should give up waterboarding if it gets the information we need. I suspect there are a few even scarier techniques on the torture no-no list that I would have no compunction using on these reprobates. Whatever happened to The Rack? How about what Jesse Jackson proposed doing to Barak Obama (cutting off his nuts, if you missed the controversy). I say, if it is good enough for the civil rights movement, it is good enough for international terrorism. As an added benefit, it would drastically cut done on the number of future generation terrorists.

Liberals always resent our attempts to impose American-style democracy and culture on other nations. They think we should respect their autocratic customs. Since liberal ideology leans toward centralized government power, this makes some sense. But then why do they get their hemp undies in a bunch when we talk about turning all the prisoners over to Iraqi and Afghan police and military authorities to handle the interrogations in the good old Middle East tradition?

I guess all this whining about torture is just the international version of the classic liberal tendency to make victims of the criminals, and criminalizes the victims. People who can be outraged by a Koran in the latrine more than a slashed throat on the telly, or are bothered more by the naked bodies of the bad guys than the dismembered bodies of the innocent … well… they’re just too weird for me.

We also should also keep in mind that “clandestine operations” are meant to be … clandestine. Duh! Espionage always requires the breaking of rules. Who for one minute thinks that we get permission to spy?
In espionage, common sense trumps common law. The world’s spy industry summarily trespasses, steals, kidnaps, kills and even lies. They cannot be effective nor competitive without such superlegal authority. They operate more by license than legality. Our safety is dependent on our folks trespassing, stealing, kidnapping, killing and, yes, even lying better than those other guys. So ... get over it!

And for the record, the United States Constitution does not apply for foreign nationals. They do not have “constitutional” rights … period. And the Geneva Conventions do not apply to terrorists… period. So let’s stop acting like they do. My version of Gitmo is “get mo’ information” and forget the pleasantries.

**Just for your edification, the “stand up” cell is nothing new. It goes back to merry olde England. The colonials imported it to this country and it was used frequently to keep the witches of Salem on there toes.