Today’s Cartoon: “The Semantics of Torture”
The CIA says it will use “enhanced interrogation techniques” on detainees in its secret prisons, but won’t say what they are. Your thoughts?
Ted Rall
http://rall.comTed Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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7 Comments.
Wow, that Bart Simpson kid is finally starting to show his age!
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a form of torture.
What's torture? it is nor smashing a hand, nor sawing a foot,
Nor breaking an arm, nor punching a face, nor severing any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call an anal probe
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So torture would, were it not torture call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which it owes
Without that title. Torture, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
G. W. Bush
I think it's way past time that people in the U.S. realize that when a government says "Trust us" about virtually anything these days, from very serious things like treatment of prisoners who, ironically, are located in prisons overseas that the government tried to keep secret, to the use of the PATRIOT-ACT to NSA…I won't go on…that it means total unaccountability for them with the incentive to do whatever the hell it is they want.
Maybe that's why things like the Geneva conventions and other treaties outlawing torture have been created and signed: because both grammatical hair splitting about what does and doesn't constitute torture as well as good faith that governments won't engage in it produce environments where anything is possible.
I always wondered what Bart Simpson would be like when he grew up. Is Lisa now a madam in DC?
Thedon needs to let up on commenting … its already bad enough this blog has gone away from being Ted Rall centric, but now even on his posts the comments are taken over. Ted, please come back to us and exile the Don just like they did in entourage.
More from Ted "I Hate the Troops" Rall. What a surprise. What's next Ted, more using Pat Tillman to bash the troops?
Speaking of torture, a reader can't get the story on Chief Justice Robert's condition via AOL News, which makes me think they're getting an inordinately large number of jokes in the messageboard for this story. Like, um, they say that if you do LSD, it can come back to haunt you the rest of your life, even if you never take another hit. When I read, at a source other than AOL, the nature of Chief Justice Roberts' fall, I immediately flashed to Doctor Strangelove going through a range of contortions in his wheelchair, ending with a Seig, Heil! Or Dan Aykroyd on SNL with his drool cup routine. Of Justice Thomas vehemently denying he ever put a pubic hair on a can of Coke and mentioned Long Dong Silver to Anita Hill. One wonders if Dick Cheney had a minor seizure when he shot his friend in the face. LSD? Not the guys in the Bush administration! And if they did do such things, it was youthful indiscretion. And ancient history. Let's hope there's no permanent damage to Chief Justice Roberts' brain, but it would be interesting if he went back to work and voted straight liberal on all cases. Someone can make a horror/sci-fi film with that scenario.