With Obama coming into office, one of the big questions is how he is going to handle terrorism. Bush has been successful at keeping the country safe for the past seven years, partly because he got information out of terror suspects with some not so squeaky clean interrogation techniques, the big one being water boarding. The far left says it's torture and the far right says it's not.
I'm not really sure if it qualifies as torture or not to be honest. I've seen video footage and it doesn't look that bad. They tilt you back and lightly spray some water on your face. There's thrashing involved, but it doesn't seem that extreme. Then again if you told me that you were going to torture me by lying me on a table and slowly dripping water on my forehead, I'd call you a moron, but evidently that technique does start to take its toll on the person undergoing it.
Here's the thing. The far right wants to just beat the crap out of these guys. They're bad and we're going to make sure that they're punished. On a visceral level I totally get it. I'm sure it would be satisfying to be locked in a room with one of these psychos and be able to dish out some justice with my fists. The far left wants to sit down and have tea and crumpets with them thinking that if we're nice to them that they will give up this information voluntarily. We can't make them uncomfortable in any way otherwise we're no better than they are. I get the idea of taking the moral high ground and we do need to compose ourselves with some restraint and reason, but you're not going to get any vital info just by making chit chat. So oddly enough, they're both wrong.
I don't see why we can't have it both ways. There are tons of ways to break these men. Many of them are unusual but they are by no means cruel.
My big idea is to go middle school on them. Wedgies (both conventional and atomic), noogies, purple nurples, snapping them with wet towels, and indian burns. These are things that most kids endure so why should these men be exempt. I promise you, if you pull a man's underwear over his head he will tell you whatever you want. It causes them discomfort, at worst momentary bouts of pain, but does no real damage to them physically or mentally. If they cry foul, they will only look that much weaker as geeks everywhere go through these things on a regular basis.
There's also the Simpsons-esque tactic of repeatedly asking the same question until they get annoyed and tell you. In that spirit you can take your two index fingers, put them half an inch away from his face, move them around in random patterns constantly repeating "not touching, can't get mad."
The key is to annoy them. Put them in a room and play Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" in a never ending loop. The song is so damn catchy that it will get stuck in their heads. Soon, they won't be able to get it out and will do whatever it takes to get the music to stop. As long as it's not at a ludicrous volume, this is by no means torture.
Sit them down to a double feature of "Catwoman" and "Batman and Robin." It's not cruel, but tough enough to get them to talk.
What if we sprayed them with the hose, but they were sitting upright? Would that still be torture? As long as it's not like a point blank shot at full blast in their face, I don't see why not. Try that. Ask the guy a question and if he doesn't answer the question spray him with lukewarm water for a few seconds. If you go too hot or too cold than it would be pushing it.
Try repeatedly flicking the backs of their ears. "Where's Osama Bin Laden?" *flick*. Sooner or later, they'll get sick of it and tell you, just to get you to stop.
If you're wondering whether or not I'm kidding, to be honest, I don't know..half? It's true we can't resort to torture but I'll be damned if I'm going to condone turning our country into a giant wimp that everyone pushes around. There has to be a middle ground somewhere when it comes to interrogation. We need this information to keep our country safe and they're not going to hand it over willingly so something needs to be done. Why not these? Isn't it, at the very least, worth a shot?
No comments:
Post a Comment