6/12/2003


DOES TICKLE TORTURE WORK?

We have heard from the "experts" that modern means of extracting information make painful torture unnecessary. They have assured us that they can get information without any of the nasty stuff that makes many of us very uncomfortable. OK, what information have they obtained with their modern methods?

Where are the WMDs? Tell us or there will be no TV for a week. You'll be grounded for a month. You can't have the car til you talk. No movies this weekend.

Whatever the "modern" techniques are they obviously aren't working. We can assume that modern drugs don't work (scientists tell us they don't work anyway), sleep deprivation just results in tired war criminals, broadcasts of heavy metal music just makes them Metallica groupies, and esoteric persuasion methods like health food diets for thirty days are useless.

We have to get serious about the uses of methods we may not like in order to get the information about Saddam, his sons, and the location of the germ warfare weapons. This is never a "nice" business. The Russians are said to have sent the severed head of a Mid East problem person to the head of state in order to get them to conform. The Brits were famous for using very graphic and cruel methods to get their way too. We may have to bite the bullet and get dirty here.

Tickle torture doesn't work.

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