I’ve been having some very odd headaches and the doctor decided it was worth checking out. Since we’ve actually met our deductible – the first time in years – I was feeling rather liberal as far as health care expenditures go. I decided to have the MRI even though the doctor says he doesn’t expect to find anything. (Gee, I thought it was just my older brother who thinks I’m brainless! Maybe those two have been talking. 
) So I went first thing this morning to have a cage put around my head and to lie perfectly still in an incredibly loud coffin for half an hour. All I could think about was the old Vincent Price movie where the torturer puts rats in a cage, and the cage on the guy’s head. It just scared the heck out of me at the time – more proof that parents ought to pay more attention to what their children watch on TV. But I digress.
Perceived rat cage torture (how I felt in the MRI), fictional rat cage torture (the movie), and actual rat cage torture (apparently the rat torture actually consisted of placing the rat in a cage on the victim’s belly, and putting hot coals on top of the cage, causing the rats to try to burrow to safety through the person) are all very different things. The press seems to feel that torture is in the eye of the beholder – if the terrorists, or suspected terrorists, call it torture, it must be torture. I suspect most Americans have a very different concept of torture than things like stress positions, cold rooms, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’ve seen variations on those themes in the Catholic grammar school I attended. Try kneeling on rice for 15 minutes, or kneeling with arms outstretched and a dictionary in the palm of each hand. It’s lousy, but it’s not torture. Definitions notwithstanding, what is actually happening at Gitmo? The final installment at Patterico’s with a Gitmo Army nurse who dealt with detainees in his job as a mental health care professional has the scoop. Among other things being administered at Gitmo, the dreaded comfy chair is regularly utilized.
Rich Lowry said this:
Interrogators rely on the soft sell. Detainees sit in a La-Z-Boy chair during interrogations, and beverages and movies are available to put them at ease. The most effective interrogator is said to be an older woman who adopts a nurturing attitude. [...]
I asked Stashiu: are the detainees really pampered in interrogations? He said:
For some, they eagerly await days until “reservation” (interrogation) and there are frequently requests to see their interrogator. This is why I said that some fear to return home or they would be killed as traitors. They get to smoke (sometimes 4 or 5 packs at once, uggh!), watch new-release DVDs that have been screened by Intel so they don’t get current events, eat pizza or fast-food, listen to music, smoke a hooka, etc…. The better stuff they give up, the more the interrogators get for them. All of this has been previously released to the public, but you never hear about it in the MSM.
As far as Gitmo being “the gulag of our times,” which was one example of the Democrat hyperbole which led to The Gitmo Cookbook, Stashiu says,
Third, to call Guantánamo a “gulag” is not only inaccurate, it’s (in my opinion) reprehensible. In war, under the rules of previous conflicts, anyone found to be an unlawful combatant could be executed on the spot by the decision of the ranking officer. There did not have to be a trial or proof beyond a reasonable doubt, just reasonable suspicion. We (the United States) conduct war to a higher standard of conduct because of our culture’s respect for life and the rule of law. These are the types of things that are used against us, turning our strengths against us.
Read it all, and get the perspective of one man who was there, unfiltered by the MSM. And if you have questions, post them in Patterico’s comments. Stashiu is a regular Patterico reader, and he has been replying to questions.
Recent Comments