Rudy's Torture Talk
By Richard Cohen
Washington Post
On the playground, lo these many years ago, I was shooting baskets when an older boy ordered me off the court. This was just like the movies, I reasoned, and so I stood my ground and instantly got punched right in the mouth. I went down, and as I did, I remember thinking this was not at all like the movies. It hurt. It really hurt.
The realization that life is not a movie has inexplicably yet to occur to Rudy Giuliani, despite the horrors of Sept. 11. Mistaking something he must have seen in the movies for real life, he mocked the alleged softies who condemn torture of any kind, saying of sleep deprivation, "They talk about sleep deprivation. I mean, on that theory, I'm getting tortured running for president of the United States. That's plain silly."
It's not silly, though, to Orson Swindle. He spent six years and four months as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and was subjected to beatings and sleep deprivation. One time, he went about 20 days without sleep. I asked him if he considered it torture.
"Oh, yes."
Swindle's account of his sleep deprivation lacks precision. Some of the time he was hallucinating, and so he relied on the reports of others to determine how long he was forced to stay awake. His jailers wanted him to write a propaganda letter to Sen. Edward Kennedy. Ultimately, Swindle did. In the end, people being tortured usually give their jailers what they want -- the truth, a lie, something in between. Torture can be an unreliable interrogation tool.
But in the chest-beating contest that has become the GOP presidential race, neither the efficacy of torture nor the damage it has done to America's public image is questioned much. Along with Giuliani, both Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney think that only the excessively squeamish are appalled by waterboarding or the exceedingly bad rep of the Guantanamo Bay prison. They want Gitmo kept open -- more Bush than the Bushies, in this case: The administration is looking to close it.
(Continued here.)
Washington Post
On the playground, lo these many years ago, I was shooting baskets when an older boy ordered me off the court. This was just like the movies, I reasoned, and so I stood my ground and instantly got punched right in the mouth. I went down, and as I did, I remember thinking this was not at all like the movies. It hurt. It really hurt.
The realization that life is not a movie has inexplicably yet to occur to Rudy Giuliani, despite the horrors of Sept. 11. Mistaking something he must have seen in the movies for real life, he mocked the alleged softies who condemn torture of any kind, saying of sleep deprivation, "They talk about sleep deprivation. I mean, on that theory, I'm getting tortured running for president of the United States. That's plain silly."
It's not silly, though, to Orson Swindle. He spent six years and four months as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and was subjected to beatings and sleep deprivation. One time, he went about 20 days without sleep. I asked him if he considered it torture.
"Oh, yes."
Swindle's account of his sleep deprivation lacks precision. Some of the time he was hallucinating, and so he relied on the reports of others to determine how long he was forced to stay awake. His jailers wanted him to write a propaganda letter to Sen. Edward Kennedy. Ultimately, Swindle did. In the end, people being tortured usually give their jailers what they want -- the truth, a lie, something in between. Torture can be an unreliable interrogation tool.
But in the chest-beating contest that has become the GOP presidential race, neither the efficacy of torture nor the damage it has done to America's public image is questioned much. Along with Giuliani, both Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney think that only the excessively squeamish are appalled by waterboarding or the exceedingly bad rep of the Guantanamo Bay prison. They want Gitmo kept open -- more Bush than the Bushies, in this case: The administration is looking to close it.
(Continued here.)
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