Yesterday I heard that Seymour Hersch, the New Yorker columnist who made his fame breaking the My Lai Massacre has now published a book which indicts the Bush Administration for Abu Ghraib tortures.
I've said before that the elements of torture revealed to me were not surprising, or particularly horrific and that most of them appeared to fall into two categories. One: Going over a known line in the usual course of interrogations. Two: Amaturish pranks by weekend warriors. Most attention has been focused on the second category. Of them I have said that the reason they are not surprising is because of the content of American vulgar pop culture as exemplified by our jocularity about prison rape ("Don't drop the soap" - Martha Stewart's bunkmates, etc) and television and movies, particularly 'Fear Factor'.
I watched Fear Factor again the other night. There were three stunts. On the other side of these stunts were $50,000 of prize money.
1. Climbing to a height of 110 feet over concrete pavement, leap 8 feet to a cargo net. (Subject is tethered).
2. Eat after thorough chewing 5 live earthworms & 1 live centipede.
3. Crawl 200 yards through a sewage pipe in pitch darkness.
Is this torture? If we made prisoners of war do this, would we be cited by human rights organizations? Does the $50,000 make a difference? Does volunteering make a difference?
Somebody please explain to me exactly how this qualifies as entertainment.
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