loosie: words: Clanton's Rant

Clanton's Rant

What's a little dunk in the water with Dick Cheney when freedom is on the line?

by Clanton McNeese | 2006.10.29

In the lexicon of painful persuasion, “water-boarding” fails to engender the empathetic groans evoked by “testicle-crushing” or “fingernail-pulling.” It sounds literally like a walk on the beach, less intimidating than the average Six Flags roller coaster. It is, however, according to no less an authority than John McCain, “exquisite torture.”

McCain, a former captive of the North Vietnamese, has been tortured. Dick Cheney, a tough-talking, quail-shooting Halliburtonian, has not. McCain opposes America’s use of water-boarding; Cheney does not.

In fact, Cheney dismisses the procedure as no more than “a dunk in the water.” For the vice president, it’s a “no-brainer” that such an innocent activity should be included in an American interrogator’s repertoire. The very phrase “dunk in the water” conjures up a vision of a portly vice-principal perched atop a ducking stool at the PTA Fall Festival.

Here’s what really happens. A blindfolded prisoner is fastened to a board, then tilted so that his head lies lower than his feet. His nose is taped shut, his mouth covered with a porous cloth. The torturers then pour water onto the cloth. The prisoner, unable to breathe through his nose, must open his mouth for air. What he gets is a mouthful of water and the sensation of drowning. After some desperate gasps, gurgles and shrieks, the prisoner is swung upright and briefly permitted to breathe. The treatment is repeated, again and again.

When CIA volunteers were offered the opportunity to experience water-boarding from the victim’s position, the average volunteer endured for fourteen seconds, even while secure in the knowledge that he would not be permitted to drown. Still, John Yoo, the administration’s lead lawyer for circumventing the Geneva Convention’s rules on prisoner protection, argues that water-boarding is acceptable at Guantanamo and the secret prisons abroad.

According to Yoo, if organs are not permanently damaged, no real harm has been done. The law school professor doesn’t hold with wimpy psychological concerns. There is as yet no record of Yoo undergoing water-boarding himself.

Nor has Cheney. But the vice president has been stung by his critics. “For a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president for torture,” he said. He is determined to avoid further abuse. In the future, expect him to defend other questionable procedures through the judicious selection of euphemisms. What about the aforementioned testicle-crushing? “Well, for me, using ‘nut reduction’ is a no-brainer, but I was criticized as…” Or fingernail-pulling? “Well, for me, using ‘modification manicures’ is a no-brainer, but…”

All apologists for torture, from Alan Dershowitz to the densest talk show jock, present the same scenario: a bomb is about to explode at the Super Bowl, or on the Golden Gate Bridge, or in the New York Stock Exchange. Shouldn’t we have the authority to torture the truth out of knowledgeable captives? Isn’t this a Cheney defined no-brainer?

The presumptions permit serious questions:

Exactly how are those knowledgeable captives identified? In Guantanamo and elsewhere, we have corralled hundreds of prisoners who have been charged with nothing.

Does torture produce the truth? Experts contend that torture always forces a response, but rarely a truthful one.

Will the prospect of torture intimidate radical enemies of America? Consider the number of suicide bombers who have died in Iraq and Israel.

Although American courts have consistently ruled against torture, the practice has a rich international tradition. So when the U.S. abuses prisoners, we move an ugly step closer to the Khmer Rouge and the Spanish Inquisitors. It’s easy to invent official excuses for treating human beings inhumanely. It’s equally easy for outsiders to spot the savage ironies. The King of Spain unleashed the Inquisition in defense of Christianity. America acts in defense of freedom.