Depicting Torture

An illustration depicting torture with a hot clothing iron, was discovered in an al-Qaida "safe house" in Iraq in May 2007.

The maid must have forgotten it.

The United States military raided a house outside of Baghdad.

From the outside, it seemed to be a normal house; it was the scene inside that was chilling

Come in...Come in...I won't hurt you my little pretties.

Five Iraqi nationals had been kept and tortured in the house by al-Qaida.

al-Qaida! We should have guessed!!

The military also found drawings which it believes are part of a torture manual for al-Qaida operatives.

And they weren't by Frank Lloyd Wright, either.

The images include depictions of gruesome acts of torture, like pressing a hot clothing iron against a detainee's skin, removing eyeballs and placing a detainee's head in a vise [source: Department of Defense]

Ouch! Stop it! That hurts...you ugly rag head! 

It's just their method of getting rid of a pesky headache. Don't get your knickers twisted.

Aren't we good Americans and would never do such horrid things, would we?

Even worse, the tools and instruments necessary to carry out such acts--like blowtorches and power drills--were also discovered in the house [source: Fox News].

Yech!

But what did you expect....a lovely long stemmed rose and a box of chocolate??

Wasn't it Smedley Butler who said War Is Hell?

One may be gripped by panic at the thought of being subjected to any of the methods depicted in the al-Qaida manual; having a limb severed or being hanged by your arms behind your back are surely horrifying experiences.

Get over it, bitch!

To add to the argument against torture, these methods are not generally considered useful.

Doesn't make them unpopular.

Information gathered from a detainee upon whom an interrogator is inflicting intense physical pain is unlikely to be accurate [source: The New York Times].

In other words, a person who has a hot iron pressed to his or her bare chest is likely to say anything--factual or not--just to get the torturer to stop.

Not even "Would you kindly get this freaken iron off my freaken genitals, you fux?!

In 1988, a CIA official testified before a Senate intelligence committee, "Physical abuse or other degrading treatment was rejected, not only because it is wrong, but because it has historically proven to be ineffective" [source: The Baltimore Sun].

How would this government expect to know?

Yeah! We were absent that day!

The United States spent decades conducting experiments, field tests and research in a quest to perfect the science of interrogation.