Odds

Believe it or not ... the guy in picture #3 has the greatest risk or dying.

This picture says more than fourteen words

Real Torture

When the Abu Ghraib Prison torture scandal hit the newsstands, the American people were horrified.

How could US soldiers treat prisoners this way?

Well ... America has actually directly, and indirectly, tortured people for most of the 20th Century.

When pictures like the one below were later released to the general public, it was hard to deny that at least some American soldiers had crossed the line while in Iraq.




For me ... there are two things that jump out at me from this picture.

1) If you take a look at the upper right leg of the foreground prisoner (click picture to enlarge), it becomes painfully obvious that good spelling is not a strict requirement for a US military prison guard.

And …

2) This would be the first rapist I have seen with his hands tied and his underwear pulled down to the middle of his leg.

Although this method of torture sells newspapers and gives mid-western military personnel their sexual jollies, I think there is a much better way.

Historically Americans have been resourceful when approaching their problems, and I think this situation is no different. I believe we have resources in this country, which could be successfully used to torture enemy captives in such cruel ways that they would have no choice but to eventually spill the beans.

For example, I believe that enemy combatants would sooner die than be tied to chairs and forced to watch endless Ashley Simpson videos.



I believe that this would crack most of them open like eggs. However, some would require harsher torture, and for those evildoers, we would fly them to New York City.

"Would we make them tour ground zero?” you ask.

"No", I say. We would treat them to seemingly never ending live performances of "Legally Blonde" The Musical.




These forms of torture would certainly test the limits of the Geneva Convention, but I am sure they would be effective.

In the event that more was needed, we could turn to one of our allies in the War on Terror. John Howard and Australia could provide us with such a horrific torment that no Al-Qaeda terrorist would stand a chance in Hell. The CIA has often traveled overseas to torture its prisoners, so this would not be unusual.

Upon arriving down under via Qantas Airways, the hardest of the hard prisoners would be denied sleep and forced to watch back-to-back seasons of "The Wiggles".



If this did not increase prisoner suicide rates, I don't know what would.

Off Topic

I seem to be way off the normal track of politics these days for several reasons. One big reason for this is that we are thankfully now watching a transition take place in Congress. I will patiently wait to see how the new Democrats will handle themselves before I comment on their progress … or lack of it.

The situation in Iraq is certainly still very bad, and it makes very sad when I see the soldiers who are killed there (Like my Uncle) day after day. I have made so many comments about this pointless war in the past, that further discussion seems redundant.

I think this photo from a beach memorial in Santa Barbara does a good job of illustrating the great loss we have already incurred.