Torture is the abusement / mistreatment of people who are under your complete control.
I’m ready to look at other definitions, if you have one, but I’ll tell you up front that anybody who comes with a definition that waffles on how much pain or physical injury is incurred determines if it is torture will automatically recieve an F double minus zero and utter bullshit stamped in red across the top of the page.
When something of the humanity in one human being is destroyed, something is destroyed in the common humanity of all people.
Today, June 26, is the date assigned by the United Nations for International Support of Victims and Survivors of Torture.
Or, to put it bluntly, boys and girls, today is the 20th International Anti-torture Day. Nobody told me that, I figured it out all my self, by counting on my fingers and toes from 1987 to 2006. Next year, I guess I'm shit out of luck.
Only 20 years and what great strides have been made! For example, I first heard of this day six weeks ago when I signed up on the anti-torture blog roll. It won’t be long before thousands of people know about this day and take a stand against torture even stronger than that of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney!
But what of the other great strides!
A number of despots in the Middle East whose regimes were propped up with the help of torture and American military aid have been deposed! The number happens to be one, but hey, one is more than none!
As the deposed despot was personally responsible for torture not only his own country but throughout the Middle East, torture is rapidly disappearing in his country and throughout the Middle East. True there are a few die hard countries where torture is still visited upon political opponents, true, the list includes all these countries, including the country of the former despot. The bright spot, however, is that most of them are American allies, except for a couple who are axis of evil countries and therefore scheduled for regime change.
The United States continues to reaffirm its leadership and brave stance against torture with a number of clever moves. Renaming the School of the Americas where South American military and police forces are trained in the use of torture to subdue and control their populations was a stroke of sheer genius! Imagine, you don’t close the school, just give it a new name! That’s sort of like killing two birds with one stone, or in this case, zapping two testicles with one electrode.
America has also shown brave leadership by removing itself from the jurisdiction of international tribunals which try war crimes, including torture – such foresight takes my breath away!
But the best move by far has been prisoner of war camps which aren’t prisoner of war camps and therefore not covered by such quaint things as the Geneva Conventions. The genius thing here has been keeping name and location of most of the camps secret as well as the names of many of the people kept there.
One concentration camp is there out in the open. It’s so bright and shiny we like to call it Hotel Gitmo’. Chicken breasts in lemon sauce are served every other day to the guests who get to partake in fun games and water sports with the guards…
Please excuse The Crazy Bird while he goes outside to puke. He’ll return in a moment with the “Hotel Gitmo’ Talking Blues.
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