"Pass the alligator clips, brah"

The media has gone and found itself another hip buzzword that they can repeatedly drop more often than a lubed up crack baby*. Lately, you can’t nary surf three channels in a row without hearing something about “torture”. And I'm not talking about the old-school Cure track either off 'Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me'; I'm talking about actual mental and physical torture here. Torture. Torture. Torture. Here some torture; there some torture; everywhere some torture torture. This hot topic is literally dripping off reporter’s lips nowadays like drool from an epileptic wildebeest. It’s all you hear about anymore for fuck sakes!

Of course torture has been a political bone of contention and a continuing topic of concern among world leaders these days, especially after the whole exposing of crimes that supposedly took place at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo at the hands of the righteous fighters for freedom themselves- the God-fearing American military.

...Oops.

But these incidents, and rightly so, have since snowballed before the world’s eye into a full blown heated debate over whether such barbaric methods of extracting information should be allowable by moral society. Umm, all this just because Lynndie England decided to host a naked pig pile and then make her best Arthur Fonzarelli impression for a soldier buddy’s camera?

Egad!

Now, President Idiot Child, who originally opposing the bill on the grounds it would hamper intelligence-gathering in the US war on terrorism, has decided to reverse his position and instead endorse the ban on torture, but ONLY after months of White House attempts to weaken the measure, which prohibits the "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment of detainees in US custody anywhere in the world. Vice President Dick Cheney, the evilest man on earth, however, has other aspirations for the bill as he is still involved in the lobbying of support from other Senators to reconsider their ban proposal; to modify it so interrogators - especially those attached to the CIA - would have the flexibility to use a range of extreme tactics on terrorism suspects. What the fuck is “extreme tactics” about exactly? Whether Dick “Cattle Prod” Cheney is talking about a nice sodium pentathol enema, forced viewing of ‘Designing Women’ reruns, or the clamping downs of someones schiznits in a vice – nobody seems to knows. But I’d sure hate to be stalling at the front of the cafeteria line and keeping him from his ‘Freedom Fries’. He’s likely to go all ‘Big Brother’ and have me wisked off in the middle of the night to one of these clandestine military detention centers, or “Black Sites” as their unofficially known, and have my feet locked into a box of rats.

Anybody still unnerved yet?

Cheney, in an interview with ABC News' Nightline program, said he backed legislation to ban inhumane treatment of prisoners, but criticized what he saw as a diminishing commitment by some to do "what's necessary" to defend the country. Me thinks somebody has seen one too many Rambo movies. The moment I see Cheney in an interview wearing a red cloth tied around his head - I'm packing and moving to Thule, Greenland.

To me, its this exact definition of “extreme tactics” seems to be the key here and worthy of further explaination. I mean, sure I can understand that extrme times call for extreme measures – I love a catch phrase like everybody else - but are we really ready to sacrifice hundreds of years worth of moral evolution by reverting back to applying thumb screws and wiping our asses with pages of the Qua’ran? Oh wait, you mean we already did that?

...Oops.

It was only just recently as a matter of fact that I even learned that the US House of Representatives had passed this final legislation, the infamous “Anti-Torture Bill”, to ban the torture of detainees. Much to my dismay, I also learned that the White House stood at a vote of ninety to nine in favor of the torture ban.

Wait, you mean nine – count ‘em, NINE - senators are still in favor of torture? Holy fuck! Those are some bad ass senators that I wouldn’t exactly want to run into in a dark cloister somewhere, that’s for fucking sure! They must be the old guys who walk around the Pentagon wearing necklasses made out of ears or something. These must be the guys who think that ‘24’ is this years best Reality television show and that Keifer Sutherland is really out saving the free world from evil doers outside their windows on the White House lawn. They’d just as soon have you skinned alive if ever you should look at them the wrong way. If I were one of the other ninety anti-torture Senators I'd be locking my office door so that I wouldn't end up sucking my Christmas turkey through a tube.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if ever there were a situation where a nuclear weapon was about to detonate on my front doorstep and there was some terrorist jag-off sweating corn chips and refusing to cooperate – I’d twist the fucking piano wire myself! Got it?

In fact, I think I could learn to advocate this lifestyle all too easily. Maybe I’m speaking too hastily. After all, torture does produce its results, doesn’t it? How many severed terrorist heads simply give up their secrets? People are just more inclined to tell you the truth and get straight to the point when you strip them down and ride them up and down the hallway like a horsey**. Shit, I’m prepared to utilize torture for the rest of my every day life as well in order to extract all forms of information whether it be movie listings, road directions, or even just the time off any stranger on the street corner.

Fuck it! CHINESE WATER TORTURE FOR EVERYBODY!

Now how does one become a Senator?

* Yeah, I know, there’s a warm spot waiting for me when I die.

** Or attach electrodes to their scrotum, or threaten to rip their arms from their sockets – whatever your particular poison happens to be.