torture Would you trust this man with your children? John Kiriakou [former leader of the CIA team that captured Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah] said by using the torture technique of water boarding he got his captive to talk in less than 35 seconds.
          He looks so earnest. On ABC News this week he said "Like a lot of Americans, I'm involved in this internal, intellectual battle with myself weighing the idea that waterboarding may be torture... and I struggle with it."
     This isn't your average frat-boy hazing mind you. Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation technique that involves strapping down a
prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face.
     The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning. Of it's infamy Rear Adm. John Hutson (USN Ret.) testified before Congress recently that, “Other than, perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, water boarding is the most iconic example of torture in history. It was devised, I believe, in the Spanish inquisition. It has been repudiated for centuries.”
     I have no doubt that some shall call Kiriakou a hero. Not to me. Torture, though used through human history is of questionable value in achieving fair results. How much, I venture to guess, would Mr. Kiriakou "struggle" with this if he had been subjected to waterboarding himself.

Labels: atrocities, iraq quagmire, torture, waterboarding

  ¶ 20:17 0 comments

  dissing free speech, sanctioning torture

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WWE Impressario Vince McMahon crossed the line last night from gruesome entertainment to violence porn.
     I find the abusive beating that popular wrestler Rey Mysterio received at McMahon's instruction totally "...without any socially redeeming value..."
     Even worse, the rationale for McMahon's ordering the assault was because Rey Mysterio disagreed with McMahon's opinion. "I know ~ you can say your opinion, there's freedom of speech here..." baited McMahon to an obviously skeptical Rey Mysterio. And when Mysterio disagreed, McMahon ordered Umaga, a massive Samoan wrestler to trounce on him. Some respect for freedom of speech.

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     Before I go any further on my rant, let me make it clear that I throughly enjoy wrestling matches. For that matter, I find the matches erotic ~ I know I'm not alone on this one.
     I have watched WWF/WWE matches for close to a couple of decades. I regularly tune in to WWE Smackdown on UPN Friday nights and try to check out Spike-TV's Thursday night lineup of Ultimate Fight Competitions and Total Action Wrestling. Hell, I've even watched Fight Club twice.
     Frankly, I find Ultimate Fight Competitions more exciting than RAW or Smackdown. There's more focus on fighting and no wasted time devoted to pseudo-psychodrama or contender-preening sideshows.
     I also recognize that the guys [and gals, what there are of them] who sign into the WWE empire do so of their own free will.
     As combatants, they are fully aware that they may get injured in the process, even seriously. As entertainers when they go into the ring they often play out a role, and that could include acting as though they are injured.
     That, in essence, is what is Kayfabe is all about. I know that a good part of what I see is replete with such as feuds, storylines, and gimmicks, rather like soap opera, and made to appear as if something is worse than it appears. ...so I'm not beyond thinking that what I saw might not have been real ...the seriousness of the injuries sustained by Rey Mysterio.

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     Having said that, I return to what was shown on Friday night. First there's the build-up. It comes in a couple of parts:
  •  Rey Mysterio enters the ring to cheers from his fans and a home town crowd. He's been out of the ringa few months, after his leg was broken by another challenger in a gruesome match. I can deal with that.
  •  McMahon comes in full bore bully [playing the role of heel to Mysterio's crowd pleasing face, has the ring surrounded by a phalanx of beefy henchmen, effectively banning anyone from entering or leaving the ring without his say-so;
  •  McMahon then challenges Rey Mysterio to disagree with him on his choice of a wrestler against one that Billionaire egotist Donald Trump will select; Okay, so it's a big stunt designed to promote a bet between two rich boors; No problem with that either.
  •  But then the problems begin...
  •  After bringing the Samoan into the ring, who lurks thretening in the background McMahon asks Rey's opinion, "It's a free country. You have freeom of speech..."
  •  When Mysterior disagrees with McMahon, first showing him disdain, then outright disagreeing with him, McMahon sics the big wrestler on a man using a cane, obviously still physically disabled, attacks the injured leg with vigor and slams him down to the point that Rey appears to be unconscious.
  •  McMahon, clearly undisturbed at the actions he has put forward, leaves the ring, smirking, giving yet another plug about his challenge to Trump. Meanwhile, a team of EMTs rushes in to cart newly re-injured Rey out of the arena.
  •  The inherent messages?
  •  As I said at the top of this screed It's perfectly acceptable to beat the crap out of a disabled person in front of an international audience ~ and ~ this kind of treatment is an acceptable response when dealing with someone you disagree with ~ if ~ you are rich and powerful enough to get away with it.
     For the rest of us, there is no freedom of speech.
     It's not clear to me that McMahon has violated WWE Corporate's code of business conduct, but then it's McMahon's name on the front page of the Corporate Governance website, so perhaps he can change the rules as he pleases.

Examples of prohibited conduct include, without limitation:
  * Interfering with a person’s ability to perform his/her job, or creating an offensive work environment through insulting or degrading remarks, gestures, propositions, jokes, tricks, displays of ...offensive symbols, objects or pictures or similar conduct related to a legally protected basis...
  * Any threat of, or actual, retaliation against any person for reporting or filing claims of unlawful harassment.

     But Greenwich, Connecticut-based WWE and Mr. McMahon are still technically bound by laws that govern all American citizens, and aggrievated assault is a crime in my book, a serious one. Arrogantly beating another person into submission [or instructing some lackey to do so at your bidding] is evil, pure and simple.
     As I said above, it may have all been an act. But in the television drenched brains of many, the act was real. The audience at the San Diego area remained in stunned silence as McMahon strutted out.
     The actions, even if faked, were disgusting. McMahon should apologize for violating another person's freedom of speech, and maybe publically set up a foundation ~ over which no one at WWE has any control ~ to promote the free discourse of opinion, as well as to establish a fund to aid disabled persons who have been assaulted by thugs.
     What do you think, reader?
If you let WWE's Corporate Board of Directors know, will McMahon send a thug to trash your house, too? Here's the phone numbers and addresses to reach the WWE corporate offices.
     This time WWE and McMahon personally went over the top. Return to entertaining us, Vince. Step back on the weird not so crypto-fascist politics.

Labels: abuse, censorship, criminal acts, torture, Vince McMahon, violence porn, wrestling

  ¶ 10:37 1 comments

  criminals As far as I'm concerned the Director of the Michigan Department of Corrections Patrica Caruso, should be personally held accountable for the murder of 21 year old Timothy Joe Souders.
     Timothy Souders, a 21 years old man diagnosed with a major dpressive disorder, died naked and dehydrated in his isolation cell. Mr. Caruso was serving one to four years for resisting arrest, assault and destroying police property. He took medicine for manic-depression, psychosis and hypertension, and attempted suicide three times while a prisoner.
     He was placed in solitary confinement "...because of unruly behavior... and left to lay shackled by his arms and legs to a concrete slab in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, for 17 hours soaked in his own urine. The guards claimed he refused water when offered. The "offere of water was necessary since the gurads had shut off water to the sink in his cell.
     Mr. Souder was on a complex polypharmaceutical "cocktail, typical of those foisted on people deemed as severely mentally ill. Several of the chemicals Souders was administered, including lithium and the antipsychotic drug Seroquel, are well known to cause kidney failure, increased urination, and dehydration without careful psychiatric monitoring.
     Mr. Souder's death was videotaped by prison guards. The length of time in restraints was not disputed. Staff attempted to validate their own callous actions and fired a nurse for being inattentive and not completing paper work on time to get him transferred out of the prison.
     Although a DOC social worker recommended that Mr. Souter be immediately transferred to a less restrictive mental health facility before has last days, that reccomendation was ignored. Providing mental health care, in Michigan, is corntrated out to Correctional Medical Services, which prides itself on "... reputation for providing quality, responsible correctional healthcare services nationwide." I suppose it is moot to determine whether or not they actually do provide excellent care, but they were faulted as not taking Mr. Souter out of the prison and placing himn in an appropriate care setting in a timely manner. The independent reviewers at the Prison Policy Initiative, has cited CMS as providing below standard or incomletent treatment in at least two other states, including Missouri and Texas.
     While I seriously doubt that Ms. Caruso was present for Mr. Souder's ungraceful death [he died of thirst after 4 days in locked seclusion and restraints] her leadership role at the Michigan State Department of Corrections clearly sets a tone for what is acceptable for her guards to do to inmates and what is not. She laughed during the 60 Mnutes interview, defending this reaction with a glib "...well, the guards have to protect themselves from being hit with feces and urine by the inmates". Her rationales presented for restratints, although prefaced with empty claims such as that "...restraints are never used to punish inmates", that they'd only be used for safety purposes, except that, clearly, the safety of young Mr. Souder apparently was never in the cards.
     Evidently, indiscriminate use of restraints is deemed acceptable in the State of Michigan. In the facility where I work, the maximum length of time that a person can be kept in restraints is 3 hours. Even then there must be 15 minute checks to see if the person has calmed down and released. But where I wrok, use of restraints has been aggressively discouraged in favor of actively working to help someone who is out of control to de-escalate aggressive behaviors. In Michigan, Commissioner Caruso said they are "considering" limiting the use of restraints to 6 hours. That said, the prios has already been reported as violating Court orders to limit this type of intervention.
     According to Amnesty International standards, this suggests that Michigan officials consider torture by means of excessive use of restraints is acceptable as well. Personally, I find this reprehensible if not truly obscene.
     At the very least, I hope Commissioner Caruso doesn't sleep well these days. But why is that I suspect that she doesn't care at all. Maybe it was the nervous laugh on the 60 Minutes interview about dealing with unruly prisoners.

Labels: arrogance, malfeasance, mentally ill, prisons, torture

  ¶ 14:55 1 comments

  iraq quagmire | abu grahib Starting out by telling the audience that he was a good Jewish boy, Congressman Chris Shays stated clearly that he believes that what happened at Abu Grahib was "not torture"
     I doubt that those who were subjected to involuntary acts like the one to the left would agree with this surmise. I also doubt he'd be willing to submit to being sodomized, waterboarded, beaten senseless for hours or made to stand on a box with electrodes attached and a hood on his head. But perhaps we can derive some consolation that, if Congressman Shays did have thses things done to him, that he would be comforted knowing the American soldiers doing it to him were not torturing him.
     Disguting man. If I lived in his district, I'd vote against him for this belief alone. Hear his comments directly at this YouTube clip.
By the way, I found his opening comment about being a good Jewish boy both troubling and astounding. As if there ought to be a connection

Labels: abu grahib, iraq, torture

  ¶ 10:12 0 comments