Make Them Do The Hokey Pokey

Well, thanks to Time Magazine, I now know for a fact that the United States does indeed operate a gulag archipelago, just as Amnesty International said it did. And furthermore, I was once an inmate. In fact, I have spent a significant period of my early life in a “gulag,” as Amnesty International phrased it, or in a “torture facility,” as the Associated press described the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. And the proof came courtesy of Time Magazine’s Michael Duffy.
According to Duffy, the threshold for torture may be as low as being forced to stand for protracted periods of time, or to be forced to listen to Christina Aguilera music. I assure you. I suffered far worse than that. I now fully understand why the Democratic Party is demanding that we turn these terrorists loose. They have indeed suffered enough.
Ever since Newsweek Magazine stumbled with its discredited “Koran desecration” story, a lie that resulted in at least 15 deaths and incalculable diplomatic damage, the mainstream press has rallied around its stricken brethren and tried to resurrect the spirit if not the substance of the Newsweek fable.
One particularly resilient bit of nonsense that the mainstream media will not let go of is that the United States, under the cruel despotism of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, tortures prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Cynical Democratic politicians (Is there any other kind anymore?), have joined the chorus. The number two Democrat in the United States Senate went so far as to compare U.S. soldiers to Nazis.
And now Time Magazine supposedly has the goods, proving that indeed, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility is a torture chamber.
Among the abuses meted out by the savage interrogators include making prisoners stand for protracted periods of time.
Gosh, you mean like standing in the check out line at Costco, or waiting your turn at the Department of Motor Vehicles? When I was in elementary school, I was frequently forced to stand for protracted periods of time – and not just in the corner. My sixth grade teacher would walk me up to the chalkboard, note the elevation of my nose, draw a circle about half an inch above it and force me to stand, with my heels off the floor and keep my nose in that circle. Those terrorists should thank Allah that the Gitmo guards didn’t learn their trade from Mr. Frazier.
And that was for being the class clown. These guys in Gitmo are getting off a lot easier for plotting the mass murder of women and children.
The Gitmo inquisitors would also deny their inmates trips to the restroom. Again, this was standard procedure at my little elementary school gulag. We were never allowed bathroom breaks except during recess. If you missed your opportunity to go to the can, you sat in your chair and endured until the next intermission.
Other Gitmo tortures exposed by Time included, and I am not making this up, “mild, non-injurious physical contact such as grabbing, poking in the chest with the finger and light pushing.”
Oh my gosh! Tell me it isn’t so! Light pushing? Those terrorists must be thankful they weren’t at my little gulag. I got my butt paddled by teachers now and then. These poor guys are darned lucky that they didn’t have to navigate the bullies in my playground. The lunch line at Freeport Elementary was rougher than Gitmo.
Recently, The New York Times finally ended an era. For 34 consecutive days, a story about the Abu Ghraib prison was on the front page. For a while, it appeared that Joe DiMaggio’s streak might be in jeopardy.
I wonder sometimes what planet our cognoscenti grew upon on. Did the inhabitants of Planet Time, Planet CBS or Planet NYT never have to stand in a corner or endure a squirt gun? Have these NYTwits forgotten 9/11?
If Time Magazine and Amnesty International think that being told to wait before being allowed to visit the restroom, or having to stand is torture, imagine what they’d have to say if the terrorists were forced to participate in my worst grade school torment – square dancing. And if you think Christina Aguilera is bad, try the “Hokey-Pokey.”
No terrorist could endure being forced to put their right foot in and take their right foot out and shake it all about.