ReduxMatters

(It must be noted that a close reading of the OLC Memorandum from the previous post is indispensable to a minimum level of informed thinking concerning the moral dimensions we are hoping to pursue.)

Is Abu Zubaydah an Islamofascist?

Why not torture a man like Abu Zubaydah?

What is al-Qaeda?  Does it have a command and control structure like that of the Democratic or Republican Parties in the Senate, for instance?  Was Zubaydah really the Number Four man?  How would a person who values thinking go about making an informed decision on the matter?

Is there something fundamentally inhumane or immoral with the Confinement Box Approach or Waterboarding technique ipso facto?  Should we not reflect a bit on the complex array of circumstances surrounding the implementation of such techniques?

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong. 

                  --  H.L. Mencken

First, let us think inside the confinement box.  Can you suspend disbelief, place yourself in the confinement box (visualize a shoddy, plywood, too-small coffin) with the bug of choice and attempt to feel your way through the scenario?  No really, this matters. 

We have learned that Abu Zubaydah was Waterboarded over one-hundred and thirty times.  Does this change the morality of Waterboarding itself?  Would not each subsequent instance lessen the potential severity of the experience for Zubaydah?  Please, after about nine or ten rounds, one can plausibly imagine the following exchange:

Outside of Zubaydah’s presence
Well-lit, clinical white hallway
Just moments before Round Ten
Cue Dialogue

Interrogator X:  This MotherF*****’s a rock.  Let’s do it again.  This time, we’ll talk about the bug and really, I mean really scream.
Interrogator Y: Yeah, this guy’s on the verge…

Round Fifty-Seven

Cue Dialogue

Interrogator X:  One more time?
Interrogator Y:  Why not, but if he shits his pants again…

You do the dialogue for Round One-Hundred and Twelve.

This is supposed to be a moment of levity and reprieve.  The sheer absurdity of the OLC Memorandum screams (unlike Abu Zubaydah) for mercy and pardon.  Can we not pause and celebrate the surreal.  Kommentator believes in laughing for crying, the healing power of laughter, laughter as medicine. 

HOWEVER

This is not 1984.  No need for fiction.  If you closely read the OLC Memorandum as invited, truth is, has got to be, stranger than fiction.  But now we must go beyond the words pasted on your screen, representing the lawyers’ sadism, and dig deeper.  Sadism might just feel good, even without an avowed masochist, but does it yield good, “actionable” information?  How would you know, my little caterpillar?  Before you go off, keep your intellectual, thought-generating powder dry and think before you comment.

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