Sex Crimes in the White House
“We now know that the torture of prisoners was the result of a policy set in the White House by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Rice — who actually chaired the torture meetings. The Pentagon has also acknowledged that it had authorized sexualized abuse of detainees as part of interrogation practices to be performed by female operatives. And documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union have Rumsfeld, in his own words, checking in on the sexualized humiliation of prisoners. The sexualization of torture from the top basically turned Abu Ghraib and Guantnamo Bay into an organized sex-crime ring in which the trafficked sex slaves were US-held prisoners. Looking at the classic S and M nature of some of this torture, it is hard not to speculate that someone setting policy was aroused by all of this. And Phillipe Sands’ impeccably documented Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values, now proves that sex crime was authorized and, at least one source reports, eroticized: Diane Beaver, the Staff Judge Advocate at Guantanamo who signed off on many torture techniques, told Sands about brainstorming sessions that included the use of sexual tension, which was ‘culturally taboo, disrespectful, humiliating and potentially unexpected.’” — Alternet (US)
This article about the sexualization of torture was written by author Naomi Wolf, a “public intellectual” and prominent feminist. Evoking her experience at rape crisis clinics, she draws parallels between the modus operandi of sex criminals and state-authorized torturers. Ultimately she concludes that some frightening proportion of war crimes are in fact sex crimes, and “people in America need to demand justice for the perpetrators and their victims.”
When you first read her piece, you can’t help but get this image in your head — top politicos, most of them old white men, getting vicarious kicks from knowing that political prisoners are having hard objects inserted into their rectums. As you think about it, though, you realize two things. First, Wolf is correct: political torture frequently includes actions that would qualify as sex crimes in the civilian world. Second, her argument amounts to an inversion of the recent U.N. resolution to declare rape a war tactic. Torture is rape, rape is torture… Yes, but in the final analysis torture is torture. Does it matter much whether your thumbs are being broken or a broom handle is being shoved in your ass? They’re both illegal, according to the Third Geneva Convention.
So what’s the point? The whole thing is less about sex or torture than about politics. To portray torture as sex crime gets attention (hence the proliferating number of headlines about Wolf’s article). If you’re principled, you’ll hope this attention will expose corruption in the Bush administration and prevent such torture from occurring again. If you’re cynical, you’ll figure that it’s all just a matter of grabbing jaded eyeballs and gluing them to the news — so that the newspapers and news channels and bloggers can all fling ads in your face. And if you’re a sexual sociopath, perhaps you’ll consider joining the military or, even better, running for office. What better way to act out your worst impulses?
This is the last and greatest treason/To do the wrong thing for the right reason…
You’re right, this does sound precisely like the kind of academia-lite that’s created to provide a hit in media land rather than as a serious attempt to explain the world. And it gets right on my tits.
Sure, there are probably lots of people out there who want to believe that the Bush junta are guilty of every sin known to man, but even people who don’t like the current administration (I guess that’d be most of the world, then) should at least have the intellectual honesty to see them as they really are, not as cartoon monsters. It’s quite clear, even from the evidence that is filtered through the press, that they really did believe that they were doing the right thing. As Li Zhi pointed out, an immoral official can do a little damage, but a moral one can do far more.
So I’d say they’re just ideologques taken in by their own propaganda. Bush is probably quite a fun guy just to hang out with, and Rumsfeld isn’t Beria mk. II.
Dick Cheney on the other hand… I’d have no trouble at all believing that *his* celar walls were covered with blow-torch marks.
Apologies for length. I have an unwholesome fascination for politics.
” Bush is probably quite a fun guy just to hang out with ”
Ok. I really don’t give a shit who makes what of this or what. It’s just somethings I know:
1/ I wish someone would shoot that bastard and save the world further grief. That’s just my own, simplistic view.
2/ A friend of mine, living as a ‘Guide’ in the wilderness part of New York (What ever it’s called. The bit beyond the films and sky scrapers) is actually a good mate of GW’s. Seriously.
He mentioned one time when he needed a bridge built across some river on his land. GW saw to it.
Yes. My thoughts too; He flew a chopper full of ‘Personnel’ in and had it done, at a phone call.
No. He actually set too with tools and Built the bloody thing himself! :o
Seems he’s really a Rancher, at heart, and is happier doing such stuff. Fucking shame his old man shoved him up there to finish what he never quite managed to.
I’d still as soon see him shot as he would a ‘yote.
Sex and Torture? Mengle had his St. Bernard Dog fuck Gypsy girls as they were strapped down to a specially designed support. That was against the Geneva Convention too. What’s new?
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