Download PDF of this full issue: v44n1.pdf (21.8 MB)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Torture

By John McNamer

. . . plus the illegal invasions, the summary executions, and the surveillance state.

Why has it ever even bothered me that many thousands of people have been kidnapped and illegally rendered to CIA dark sites to be sometimes tortured to death or held for many years without any legitimate legal process?

That the use of "intelligence" information obtained from torture, well known to be mostly unreliable and useless, is now the norm for the supposedly civilized western nations of the world?

That the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama sits in weekly high-level meetings to examine a kill list of candidates to determine who will be the next "bug splat" on a video game screen, and then joke about how drones make him "really good at killing people?"

That the evolved and ongoing Bush/Cheney coalition of the killing has successfully established the right to unilaterally invade and occupy any weaker sovereign nation in the world — a scenario that Hitler could only have hoped for in his wildest dreams — slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians in the process without any legal repercussions whatsoever?

That the omniscient, faceless spooks — ever ready to pounce — are monitoring my emails, my phone conversations, my financial details, my personal life?

That these very words may be implicating me even as I type, in some yet-to-be-defined threat to the national security agencies of Bigger Brother?

It's not that they are bad people — after all, they are the good guys. They are Christian capitalists, men fully entitled to reach out and share some of the many-splendored benefits of western democracy with the unenlightened dark-skinned masses of the world. In my name, using my money.

So what if they have dredged up and put into play almost every reprehensible desecration of civilized human behavior known to the world, with crucifixion being a possible exception. The crucifixion may be still coming, by the way, as it may be they have yet to encounter a white bearded good Christian in obvious need of an attitude adjustment. Or, as the master plan continues to unfold, it could be revealed that the cross is set to be the next step up from the waterboard. Possibly, it's already in use and safely beyond the reach of our limited intelligence and security classifications.

I realize now that it doesn't matter, these things just have to be done. No particular reason, they just have to be done. So, in the spirit of true patriotism and self-preservation, I hereby announce my complete surrender to the new realities.

It's actually for my own good. I need to be quiet now and placidly carry on with daily routines. I'm a simple-minded country boy who doesn't understand the complexities. It's just the way it is.

Remembering that God and the NSA do work in mysterious ways, I accept that it's all for the best, for the greater good.

And it's become quite clear that my resistance has been mainly a personal problem. I readily admit I was once so confused, before the reprogramming. For example, I used to think that when a strong elected leader like der Fuhrer claimed the right to use massive military might to invade and occupy other countries at will, to assassinate and summarily execute in the name of national security, it was a bad thing which must be stopped by all the good people — even if it took a world war to do this.

That when the Nazis randomly kidnapped certain kinds of people and rendered them to black-site concentration camps to be tortured and killed or held indefinitely without legal process, it was atrocious, illegal, immoral, crimes against humanity.

That when the Chinese Communists in Korea and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia used water torture as their primary warped way of dehumanizing, brainwashing and destroying suspected opponents, this was the horrifying and depraved result of Godless authoritarian communist ideology. An ideology which absolutely must be stopped at all costs, even if it were to take a nuclear holocaust. Yes, it was bad enough that we found it necessary to step up and prepare to destroy the world in order to save it from this.

That the Stalin-era Guantanamo-type gulags and ridiculous show trials with fixed outcomes for perceived enemies of the state were despicable icons of the worst form of governance possible.

That the massive unrestrained surveillance states forced on their citizenry by the Soviet KGB and the East German Stasi were an intolerable assault on the dignity of "free" people everywhere. "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

But that's all in the past for me. I'm a changed man and I have seen the light. I get it now. The resistance is gone. What's happening is what's happening and it's important to be part of the team play as we go forward: Torture and rendition, illegal invasion and occupation, summary executions from on high, mass surveillance of everything about everyone.

They are all good. Period. At some very deep mystical level, it is apparently all about loving thy neighbor as thyself, or it certainly wouldn't be happening this way, would it?

As proof that I'm serious, I even have a new mantra printed on a t-shirt carefully saved in the closet for those special events demanding the utmost in political correctness: "Kill for Peace, War Forever."

John McNamer was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for service with the US Army's 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. He recently filed a request to the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court asking for an investigation of Canada's complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees; in extraordinary renditions, and in other possible war crimes as defined by the Rome Statute.