Letters to the Editor
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officialdom feeds public frenzy
In 1642 New England officials (magistrates, ministers) debated whether to brutally torture an accused pedophile to gain confession. In a torment of benevolence, they decided not to hang, but merely to mutilate. Welcome to our world.
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Is "only Name, Rank and Number " to vauge ?
Then how about:
Prisoners must NOT be considered a source of information.
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From a Victim-- Torture & Reality
The APA protection is an admirable gesture among misguided observers seeking social justice. Torture is permanently transforming for the victim, perpetrator, witnesses, and their families. It is not an entirely negative experience when endurance brings to our consciousness inner strength beyond the wildest imagination. It is self-empowering, self-sustaining while also catastrophic to esteem in a social context. PTSD is expressed in withdrawal and isolation, the unique return to the pivotal life experience that gave our self-worth in place of our social value.
To survive when others die is more painful than months of torture, more damaging as time passes and distance grows wider between the ravaging anger of immediate suffering becoming an endless string of failures we created in self-sabotage and re-victimization. The survivor is alone forever and knows only that strange comfort of the familiar pain that was our greatest moment of strength.
We are the worst procrastinators. Unequaled. We are guilty of failing to use the life taken from those we loved in the bond of beatings shared. We owed them a happiness we could never create. We are strong in our misery and weak in our guilt.
But have mercy on the perpetrator for their brand of guilt and weakness is self betrayal. The victim finds oneself, the perpetrator loses himself in shame too weak to say "No! This is hideously wrong." He spends the rest of his life saying it to an empty chair. Empty chairs freak us out, both of us.
The intelligence information? What the hell does that have to do with torture? Absolutely nothing. It does not work, failing with the disaster of great expense without return. Remove the gathering of intelligence from any discussion of abuse. Find a way that works but do not cloud the issue of torture.
Finally, torture the interrogators for a week and then deploy them. They will torture with zeal. Others will crusade against it. Either way, it is obsession with torture.
Psychologists hear me now. Go and help. Do not boycott and isolate the perpetrator further. Go become his conscience speaking 20 years from now and show him the empty chair. Make him reflect alone in a room with the chair for an entire day and he will quit. It is that simple. Lend a moral conscience to the setting while the time to change is still at hand. The moral awakening is inevitable. The key is to inspire the Humanity of us all.
I am so very tired.
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Who's Judging Now?
we'd want 'our people' treated with dignity and respect...regardless of what the "people" holding them have done in another country, we have to show we Are the more 'civilized culture'. everyone is angry about 'the war', but we have to remember 'two wrongs don't make a right'! I don't believe the "propaganda" coming from our own government. there is still pride in the Marines and I don't think they would shame themselves into such lude conduct. they are another mother's son and a representative of this nation. they 'damn well better' be acting like it! hear that bureaucrats!!!!!