OPINION > MUCH ADO ...

Back in the good old days of the Spanish Inquisition - ah, happy times - the cool euphemism for torture in pursuit of information was "putting the painful question."

Now if to your untrained ear that sounds even vaguely synonymous with the more recently coined "enhanced interrogation techniques" just because they both involve questioning and pain, be assured that you are, like, so totally wrong, the humungous difference being that the Inquisitors inflicted agonizing, terrifying torture on people whereas the Cheney-Rumsfeld Administration inflicted agonizing, terrifying something else on people.

Let there be no mistake; at no time under any circumstances do we torture; never have, never will. It's not the American Way, we're above that; in past wars we have even prosecuted enemy interrogators for, among other things, waterboarding Americans, so of course it would be the height of hypocrisy to do anything like that ourselves.

If you listen carefully to the serial explanations of former Vice President Dick Cheney, perhaps because you have too much time on your hands and just can't stand another minute of "Oprah," you will learn straight from the dybbuk's mouth that during all his years up in the belfry of the White House no torturing ever took place, absolutely none, except for a little bit but only a couple of times or maybe three hundred, on just a couple of people or perhaps 25, but hey, despite the clear fact that it never happened it was, sometimes, quite effective.

Keep in mind that for purposes of keeping the moral high ground here the word "torture" is defined as "conduct we can't after an exhaustive search dredge up a single lawyer to, even for money, say is OK so long as we wrap it in sufficient layers of legal and semantic technicalities and nobody finds out we did it."

The mystifying part is, if enhanced intorturegation techniques are justifiable because we suspect (but of course can't be sure; the whole point of intorturegation being to find out) that a person has vital information, knowledge of which would save American lives, why only torture a little bit?

Under the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Alice in Wonderland Doctrine aren't we smack dab in the middle of an in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound situation?

If it's worth waterboarding to obtain lifesaving information isn't it equally worth thumbscrews, the rack, and boiling oil?

I mean, where's the logic in saying we're willing to torture for information but only so far as Torture For Beginners; if we hit 'em with some low-end torture - waterboarding, uncomfortable positions, uninterrupted Michael Bolton music for days, thousands of repetitions of Bush trying to pronounce "nuclear" - and they still don't crack then we say OK, you can keep whatever America-endangering secrets you might have, we give up.

At the bottom of all this is the awkward and disconcerting fact that we the public know about it despite the previous administration's best and considerable efforts to spare us the discomfort by torturing the facts to keep us from knowing that they were torturing the enemy.

For most of our history administrations kept to the rule that the American people are entitled to know everything its government does, subject to certain limited exceptions.

But Imperial Vice-Overlord Cheney, who is so secretive that he is not allowed to tell himself what he is thinking, changed the rule to one in which the American people are entitled to know nothing its government does, subject to certain limited exceptions.

Clearly the Cheney Rule is better suited to modern times. I mean, what business is it of ours to snoop and pry into the activities of America? In order to keep our enemies from knowing what kind of country we are it is necessary for us also to not know what kind of country we are, and the last thing we need is a pack of do-gooders spreading the truth around like it was some kind of virtue.

That's like, so pre-9/11.

---

Robert Mitchell

Robert Mitchell Despite being an award-winning columnist, Robert Mitchell doggedly remains the same eccentric attorney who has practiced general law in Morgan Hill for more than 30 years. Reach him at r.mchl@verizon.net.

POST A COMMENT

If you are under 13 years of age you may read this message board, but you may not participate. Here are the full legal terms you agree to by using this comment form.