A Kick In The Nuts For Harsh Torture Techniques

You might ask why is torture used? or perhaps why is torture good? why is torture bad? and even why is tirture wrong?

President Obama has said that no officials will be held to account for for harsh torture techniques This is a position that has dismayed some campaigners Nevertheless Barack Obama has made a stand and taken action to ban these techniques in future and he should be applauded for it.

Presumably by creating the category 'Harsh Torture Techniques' this means there is a category called 'Soft Torture Techniques' and that somewhere there is an official memo which defines what these are. Is it the distinction between phsyical harm and psychological harm? Perhaps not; especially if psychological distress results in physical symptoms.

Is that why 'torture by threat of nasty insect' has been banned I wonder? I guess torture is all about playing on someone's fears. So perhaps a definition of 'harsh' torture is all about techniques that induce a fear of being killed and 'soft' torture is fear of anything else that you fear, such as being tickled, or eating lemon meringue pie?

The ultimate 'soft' torture would have to be 'phobaphobia' or 'fear of fear' because as we all know 'we have nothing to fear except fear itself'. In which case no government aides need ever be prosecuted for torture because the prisoners could simply 'scare themselves sh@*tless' and confess everything without direct intervention! (Wow can this idea be patented I wonder)

Physical pain is scary and debilitating though and that's why torturers have used it rather than the psychological techniques on their own. I knew someone who worked in the British Territorial Army and as a psycholgist they specialised in 'resistance to interogation techniques'. I was fascinated to know the psych-methods they used for unlocking the prisoners mind and mouth and was keen to hear more...well, they told me...'they all talk when you kick 'em in the nuts'!

This leaves us with 'the comfy chair'. So let me torture you with laughter as you watch this classic from Monty Python.



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