On Torturers
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in History, The War On Terrorism, The World, WarWhat’s a hidden cost of torture?
How about lives of the torturers?
The feeding pipe was thick, thicker than my nostril, and would not go in. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they kept pushing until the cartilages cracked. I guess I would have screamed if I could, but I could not with the pipe in my throat. I could breathe neither in nor out at first; I wheezed like a drowning man — my lungs felt ready to burst. The doctor also seemed ready to burst into tears, but she kept shoving the pipe farther and farther down. Only when it reached my stomach could I resume breathing, carefully. Then she poured some slop through a funnel into the pipe that would choke me if it came back up. They held me down for another half-hour so that the liquid was absorbed by my stomach and could not be vomited back, and then began to pull the pipe out bit by bit. . . . Grrrr. There had just been time for everything to start healing during the night when they came back in the morning and did it all over again, for 10 days, when the guards could stand it no longer. As it happened, it was a Sunday and no bosses were around. They surrounded the doctor: “Hey, listen, let him drink it straight from the bowl, let him sip it. It’ll be quicker for you, too, you silly old fool.” The doctor was in tears: “Do you think I want to go to jail because of you lot? No, I can’t do that. . . . ” And so they stood over my body, cursing each other, with bloody bubbles coming out of my nose. On the 12th day, the authorities surrendered; they had run out of time. I had gotten my lawyer, but neither the doctor nor those guards could ever look me in the eye again.Today, when the White House lawyers seem preoccupied with contriving a way to stem the flow of possible lawsuits from former detainees, I strongly recommend that they think about another flood of suits, from the men and women in your armed services or the CIA agents who have been or will be engaged in CID practices. Our rich experience in Russia has shown that many will become alcoholics or drug addicts, violent criminals or, at the very least, despotic and abusive fathers and mothers.
This editorial was written by Vladimir Bukovsky. He was imprisoned in various Soviet institutions for about 12 years for protesting the Soviet’s human rights abuses. And yes, it’s a powerful editorial. Frankly, I’ll just say right now that this is THE best look inside of the hearts and minds of those who are tortured and those who do the torturing. It’s not a pretty sight.
Stop torture now.
This entry was posted on Monday, December 19th, 2005 and is filed under History, The War On Terrorism, The World, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 19th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
I’ve made this very point here and here. Another casualty: our institutions.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
Belgravia Dispatch has what may be the blogosphere’s magnum opus of all torture-related posts here.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:27 pm
I think it’s misleading to use an example of torture for torture’s sake in order to condemn using torture for the purpose of gaining information to protect American lives. Torture for torture’s sake is wrong and can surely be expected to have negative consequences for those engaged in it (to the extent that they’re not already deranged). But those engaged in torturing terrorists to gain information – not to inflict pain for pain’s sake – may very well have a much more positive experience…
The question is: do you not realize there’s a difference, do you not care that there is a difference… or are you just glossing over the difference in order to make a point?
Full post here: Thoughtsonline
December 21st, 2005 at 12:58 am
Hey Steve, you people just don’t listen, do you? Did you read this article at all? This man was not being tortured simply for the sake of being tortured. He was being tortured because his captors WANTED SOMETHING FROM HIM. But of course, his captors are evil, right, and our torturers are good, so its not the same, or something like that…jeez…the point is that unless you are a sociopath, and lets hope there aren’t too many of those working for us, then you will recognize the person you are torturing is a human being who is feeling pain from what you are doing. That human being may be hiding a piece of information that you want or he may not, but nonetheless, he is a human being, and any human being cannot help but hurt when inflicting pain on another human being. Especially slow, drawn out, medieval-style pain. Any of our officers that do this cannot help but be haunted by their actions, even if it produces something useful.