An Alternative Universe

I call this blog A Walternative Universe, a somewhat juvenile but nonetheless useful name for the lifestyle in which I find myself.

If you want to read about a truly alternative universe, read the torture memos that the Justice Department released yesterday.  They can be found in their entirety at the ACLU website. I've only read part of the last one, dated May 30, 2005. Note that this memo was written almost four years after the horror of 911, long after the "best before date" of any arguments of the "ticking time bomb" or of a panic-stricken reaction.  It is chilling.  In quite readable legalese, various torture techniques are described, and then arguments are made about why the techniques aren't really torture as defined in various statutes and treaties. In dry, clinical prose they describe:

-the facial slap

-the abdominal slap

-the attention grasp

-walling

-wall standing

-sleep deprivation 

-water dousing

-the waterboard

In bureaucratic detail, acceptable water temperatures and room temperatures are defined, repetition and frequency of use of a particular technique are set out, making the whole horrible mess seem like a clinical procedure. Sleep deprivation is limited to 11 days, but in practice rarely exceeded 96 hours. How benevolent! During sleep deprivation, the subject is forced to stand with his arms shackled to a point above his head. The position of the hands is somewhere between the waist and above the head, but can't be above the head for more than two hours at a time. Of course, nature calls, so rather than giving the torturee a bathroom break once in a while, they are forced to wear adult diapers. Of course, torturers are cautioned to change the diaper regularly and monitor the subject for skin rashes.

The waterboard can be used no more than 5 times in 30 days, and no more than twice in 24 hours. Each session can last no more than 2 hours. No more than six applications of water can be applied in any one session. 

This is all truly bizarre. This is something out of a horror movie. And Obama has decided that the people who actually did this will not be prosecuted because they were acting in "good faith."  Didn't that argument and the argument of "following orders" go out the door at Nuremburg? Obama has left open the possibility of prosecuting higher-ups, but he doesn't seem to have the stomach for it. I hope that at least he doesn't obstruct the efforts of those in Congress who want to investigate this horrid affair.  At some point, as more and more information surfaces, I think that prosecution of those responsible will become inevitable. We can only hope.