Torture, interpreted by a python.

[jane_haze]

Got this through email, hence the ">>", but it's a bit of satire on the torture stuff. It's kinda sad after the laughs fade away and realize the seriousness of it all. Anyway...

> > Terry Jones (ex-Python)
> > Wednesday June 16, 2004
> > The Guardian
> > Published in the GUARDIAN.
> >
> > This won't hurt much
> > For some time now, I've been trying to find out where my son goes
> > after choir practice. He simply refuses to tell me. He says it's no
> > business of mine where he goes after choir practice and it's a free
> > country.
> > Now it may be a free country, but if people start going just
anywhere
> > they like after choir practice, goodness knows whether we'll have a
> > country left to be free. I mean, he might be going to anarchist
> > meetings or Islamic study groups. How do I know?
> > The thing is, if people don't say where they're going after choir
> > practice, this country is at risk. So I have been applying a certain
> > amount of pressure on my son to tell me where he's going. To begin with
> > I simply put a bag over his head and chained him to a radiator. But
did
> > that persuade him? Does the Pope eat kosher?
> > My wife had the gall to suggest that I might be going a bit too far.

> > So I put a bag over her head and chained her to the radiator. But I
> > still couldn't persuade my son to tell me where he goes after choir
> > practice.
> > I tried starving him, serving him only cold meals and shaving his
> > facial hair off, keeping him in stress positions, not turning his light
> > off, playing loud music outside his cell door - all the usual stuff
that
> > any concerned parent will do to find out where their child is going
> > after choir practice. But it was all to no avail.
> > I hesitated to gravitate to harsher interrogation methods because,
> > after all, he is my son. Then Donald Rumsfeld came to my rescue.
> > I read in the New York Times last week that a memo had been prepared
> > for the defense secretary on March 6, 2003. It laid down the strictest
> > guidelines as to what is and what is not torture. Because, let's face
> > it, none of us want to actually torture our children, in case the
> > police get to hear about it.
> > The March 6 memo, prepared for Mr Rumsfeld explained that what may
> > look like torture is not really torture at all. It states that: if
> > someone "knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if
causing
> > such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent
> > even though the defendant did not act in good faith".
> > What this means in understandable English is that if a parent, in
his
> > anxiety to know where his son goes after choir practice, does something
> > that will cause severe pain to his son, it is only "torture" if the
> > causing of that severe pain is his objective. If his objective is
> > something else such as finding out where his son goes after choir
> > practice - then it is not torture.
> > Mr Rumsfeld's memo goes on: "a defendant" (by which he means a
> > concerned parent) "is guilty of torture only if he acts with the
express
> > purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering on a person within his
> > control".
> > Couldn't be clearer. If your intention is to extract information,
you
> > cannot be accused of torture.
> > In fact, the report went further. It said, if a person "has a
> > good-faith belief [that] his actions will not result in prolonged
mental
> > harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute
> > torture". So all you've got to do to avoid accusations of child abuse
is
> > to say that you didn't think it would cause any lasting harm to the
> > child. Easy, easy!
> > I currently have a lot of my son's friends locked up in the garage,
> > and I'm applying electrical charges to their genitals and sexually
> > humiliating them in order to get them to tell me where my son goes
after
> > choir practice.
> > Dick Cheney's counsel, David S Addington, says that's just fine.
> > William J. Haynes, the US defence department's general counsel, agrees
> > it's just fine. And so does the US air force general counsel, Mary
> > Walker. In fact, practically everybody in the US administration seems
> > to think it's just fine, except for the state department lawyer,
William
> > H Taft IV, who perversely claims that I might be opening the door to
> > people applying electrical charges to my genitals and sexually
> > humiliating me.
> > So I'm going to round up all the children in the neighbourhood,
chain
> > them and set dogs on them. I might accidentally kill one or two - but I
> > won't have intended to - and perhaps I'll take some photos of my wife
> > standing on the dead bodies, and then I'll show the photos to the other
> > kids, and finally, perhaps, I might get to find out where my son goes
> > after choir practice. After all, I'll only be doing what the US
> > administration has been condoning since 9/11.
> >
> > ·Terry Jones is a writer, film director, actor and Python

[JTF]

jane_haze,

So we never get to find out where that fucking kid goes after choir practice?