Here is a comment I tried to post about "Losing in Iraq" at Done with Mirrors. Apparently, it was too long, and so was truncated.
An interesting well-reasoned post. I am inclined to think torture not a good idea, at least not until things are very desperate, but the most important thing is to be clear about what sort of torture might be appropriate. IMO it is a big mistake to paint every type of torture with the same brush. The sort of torture most effective against villains is not the same as the sort most effective against the justly heroic. To understand the difference one must understand sexual depravity.
The main significance of torture, IMO, is in its application by rogues to obtain sexual obedience in abusive relationships. It has to do with sodomy, the putting of chemicals in the digestive system (where they can be absorbed so as to affect the brain). Why? Because semen, containing E-type prostaglandins, is an algesic. Not analgesic, like aspirin, which works by blocking prostaglandins, but an algesic, i.e., a substance that increases sensitivity to pain. This makes sodomy a very useful tool of the torturer to make his torture more effectively terrifying.
It is morally paramount that whatever torture be used not be in any way similar in style or motivation to that torture that sexually depraved types use. I remember when I was in Ann Arbor in the late eighties or early nineties there was this radio program that came on public radio talking about right wing death squads in Central America and it was really to me obscene because it minutely detailed how the right wing mercenaries supposedly tortured some prisoner by sticking a live rat in his rectum, and though presumably they'd never admit it, it was kind of obvious to me that notwithstanding ostensibly the show was against right-wing death squads the tone of the show was about trying to elicit a kind of evil perverse pleasure by way of elucidating the details (I seem to remember the second installment of the series wasn't even broadcast, even the radio station or its donors perhaps realizing it was obscene.)Needless to say, such torture is not, and should not, be the American way. Nor is the American way to shoot our enemies in the ass like [I erroneously thought] some singer called Toby Keith says [he talked about a "boot" in the ass as opposed to a "bullet" in the ass--apparently I heard the song wrong.] (according to 60 minutes). Nor should it be to kick our enemies in the ass, which is too much trying to be all things to everybody (would that be a euphemism for sodomizing or a euphemism for punishing people for a disposition to be sodomized?). The kind of appropriate torture less likely to alienate our worthy friends would be an anti-forcible-sodomizer type of torture.
What girls, etc., seek to punish when they feel rapaciously threatened is the groin of the abuser. A kick to the balls is the most reasonable technique in the self-defense anti-rape courses. Why? I am inclined to think this be the case because sodomizers, and more particularly sodomizers aroused by sodomy, tend to end up with some of their own algesic chemicals in their testes. This isn't just ironic. I suspect it is "the" irony--the irony responsible for the concept of irony being something interesting (it is otherwise odd that irony seems the hardest to define easily recognizable situation). Unfortunately, in humans, prostaglandins seem more produced by the internal seminal vesicles than the testes, but still, I suspect testes are to some extent affected by the algesics produced for sodomy. There is one primate (the aye-aye) who purportedly lacks seminal vesicles, and thus probably makes his prostaglandins in his testes. This jives well with the wicked-looking long and bony middle claw-like finger that the aye-aye uses to probe and skewer tree grubs in bark--one can imagine it would make a good testicular torture implement. Anyway, if we do go the torture route, I say we should do it using sexy young female torturers very cleanly but relaxedly and sadistically ripping into the testes of our targets with exacto knives or some such thing, trying to maximize their pain.
People say that groups like Al Qaeda are motivated by religion. I am skeptical. I figure they are mostly just a bunch of sodomizers who by way of glorifying their peculiar sexual proclivities, find it convenient to glorify violence and torture, those being probably the favorite pastimes of most of them. People who don't live in a place (like the American Southeast) where religion is still quite respected don't I think realize how many people who have basically no authentic religious spirit at all nevertheless find it convenient to pretend to all manners of religious sentiment. That's what I figure is happening there. In fact, even if Islam is more anti-forcible-sodomy than Christianity (I rather suspect it is) that doesn't really make Al Qaeda being mostly a bunch of depraved sodomizers less believable. Reasonable people nowadays mostly see that your standard religions are rather outdated, so religions probably don't have that much effect on morals nowadays. But formerly, perhaps it was different. When the Middle East was dominated by a hard-ass religion maybe being hard-ass wasn't the trait would-be maters there felt the need to admire much over the years, which perhaps has not caused those tendencies to evolve from sexual selection as much in the Middle East as in the West under the sway of "turn the other cheek" Christianity. (Islam might not be hard-assed in the sense that it perhaps does not give married women much defense against being dominated, but unfortunate though that is, the sort of abuse in marriage is not a rapaciously initiated kind of abuse that most of the members of Al Qaeda presumably prefer.) True, being under the sway of a hard-assed religion might have led to fewer sodomizers in the Middle East having been able to succeed, but still, what few sodomizers that did prosper would be expected to have been very potent and dangerous. There probably are not a great number of evil Al Qaeda types in Islamic areas, but the few of them probably are very potently evil and disgusting.
There is a great danger with torture. On the one hand, people insanely tend to view too much as sexual abuse. We are not getting our asses screwed, we're just getting killed. So in a way, by allowing torture, there is the psychological danger of our viewing what is just an enemy combatant as some sort of forcibly sodomizing child molester worthy of every feeling of revenge and cruelty we can imagine. On the other hand, ritual torture and killing is probably tied up with feelings toward human sacrifice (which probably wasn't particularly uncommon in our ancestors of a few thousands of years ago), and various confusions about such feelings are dangerous, not so much because humans feelings toward human sacrifice are insane, just that human sacrifice and more particularly confusion about human sacrifice is dangerous, possibly leading to genocides or even human extinction. (And human sacrifice is less reasonable today than ever because of the great genetic diversity of humans now as a result of the explosion of travel and migrations.)
Yeah, I know my ideas are weird, but they are not just same old.
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