I'd Rather Stand

I had an argument with a friend about torture's usefulness in extracting information from prisoners. She thought it was effective, but I had to clear up what she may have meant to say. It is useful in getting prisoners to say what you want. Anything you want. That's not necessarily useful - at least, not in a progressive way. By that I mean a totalitarian regime could use it to fill their arrest quotas and for propaganda to strike fear in the hearts of the population. When a captured soldier appears on the enemy side, you might notice in him a sudden sympathy for his captors and for their cause. But does he mean it? A lot of the early Christians recanted in the face of the fearful interrogations of ancient Rome. Later on the Inquisition started did it to anyone who refused to believe in Christ. Torture is the ultimate faith tester. The new techniques are subtler, more psychological than physical, or even psychological to the point of having a physical impact, such as that which might happen to a naked person in a cell with a large, trained, military Rottweiler. Music is used now, too. Hard rock is used in modern army bases. And there's a special type of tune which I find most asphyxiating. Torture's all around you if you look for it. It's in the pukey brown colour of a 1972 Plymouth Fury. It's in multilevel public plazas when the escalator breaks down. It's in poorly planned parades; traffic backed up for miles, honking their horns as batons twirl past them unsynchronized...
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© 2010. Scripts by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved.