Rhinocrisy

Abu Ghraib is a dreaded Iraqi prison, notorious for torture and disappearance under Saddam Hussein’s regime. Last year, the Americans “reluctantly” reopened Abu Ghraib to deal with “intransigent” Iraqis. It still managed to hang onto a corner of its reputation, as Iraqis frequented the prison desperately searching for signs of inexplicably disappeared relatives and friends.

Now it looks like it’s going to recover 100% of its reputation. CBS recently obtained photographs showing “mistreatment” of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Six soldiers are being court-martialed and some higher-ups are being investigated for disciplinary action. Mark Kimmit is appalled, of course.

But in any case, what I actually want to talk about is torture techniques. The above story happens to mention some incidental techniques used against Iraqis, and they pretty much fall into the pattern of torture techniques I’ve heard about over the course of the “War on Terror”. These include sleep deprivation, hoods, and exposure to loud music.

There are lots of ways to torture someone if you want them to give up information, but some of them are obviously going to be more effective than others. There’s lots of pain-based techniques, like electro-shock to the head or groin, finger-breaking, etc., but as far as I can tell Americans like to use less bloody techniques that are based more on the principal of confusion: so, throwing off the sense of time and messing with sleep cycles is often used. In fact the “loud music” technique is in the end a form of sleep deprivation - I first heard about this back in the early 1990s, when, during the invasion of Panama, Marines used “New Kids on the Block” to flush out Maniel Noriega. It seemed sort of silly at the time, but the actual torture part of it is simply the fact that it’s impossible to sleep when someone is playing loud and repetitive music constantly. As most college students are probably aware, sleep deprivation is one of the quickest ways to screw up the human body and reduces the brain to absolute mush. Other methods of sleep deprivation include irregular serving of meals, constant bright lights, extremes of temperature and uncomfortable sleeping surfaces.

Sensory deprivation also seems to be common - hoods and earphones, goggles, cuffs so you can’t touch yourself, etc. The infamous Guantanamo picture showed detainees bound, goggled and ear-phoned. Isolation from everything is a good way to break the mind.

Why these techniques as opposed to physical ones? I’m just speculating, but I can think of a few reasons: first, these require relatively little training. Electroshock, thumbscrews, finger-breaking, etc., all involve a certain amount of knowledge and require active time investment on the part of the interrogator to get the subject prepared. The above techniques are relatively simple to perform by just about anybody and can be done routinely, and will leave the subject pliant for the interrogator. Second, they leave few physical marks, which probably is useful if you’re worried about human rights organizations getting on your case. Third, they might be more effective in general (although I once saw a 60 minutes interview with a Mossad agent who claimed that nothing was more effective than a wet-towel-over-the-mouth suffocation torture in getting people to talk).

Anyhow, I point these techniques out just so people can keep their eyes open for similar activities and recognize them for what they are. I should emphasize that these torture techniques, especially prolonged sensory deprivation, can have severe psychological effects and should not be considered “nicer” than physically traumatic techniques.

Gerry Fink, ex-director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and general asshole thinks that people in Boston should “welcome” the biosafety level 4 Boston University Medical Center bioterrorism lab in densely-populated metropolitan Boston. I’d like to see him live close to the proposed lab site and see if he still supports it.

I can’t say I’m surprised. This is the guy who is proud to be close personal friends with John Deutch (ex-director of the CIA and general asshole). He thought it was a cool idea to invite John Deutch to a Whitehead retreat forum discussing how new bioterrorism laws affect science in the U.S.. Deutch proceeded to lecture us on our duty as Americans (1/3 of the scientists there weren’t Americans) to comply with everything the government demanded. Then he proceeded to flippantly ignore attempts at discussion. A graduate student on the panel asked why the list of countries with whom we are not allowed to collaborate was not at all based on which states engaged in terrorism or not, but on being allies with the U.S… for example Saudi Arabia was not on the list of “do not collaborate” countries. Deutch brushed off the question and didn’t even try to answer it. Probably because he couldn’t.

Then an Asian-American student asked what protections from our school/ institute we could expect if we were accused of spying, etcetera as in the case of Wen Ho Lee. Deutch was again flippant, merely responding “tell them to talk to me.”

What a waste of time.

Shame on you, Gerry Fink.

The IMF meetings happened this weekend. I didn’t go, although I was planning on it, because I had too much work to do. By most accounts it was boisterous but sparsely attended, between 2,000 and 3,000 people. The Wash Post wrote a crowing editorial cautiously cheering the death of the antiglobalization movement (but warning us to continue “worrying” because anti-capitalists continue to lurk in the wings).

In the doldrums I am often led to question my beliefs and wonder whether the movement is enervated simply because it is wrong. And in fact oftentimes I think I lose sight of the beautiful aspects of the capitalist system, simply because my eye is so often drawn to all that is wrong and ugly about it; so when I am forced to consider what is right about that system, it seems all the more striking and my assessments all the more wrong.

What disturbs me is Margaret Thatcher’s idea: There Is No Alternative. And there really isn’t. No one has laid out a coherent vision of a qualitatively better non-capitalist society, one that could provide the level of wealth that capitalism does and at the same time assure a more equitable distribution and show greater ecological responsibility. Actually, it only makes sense to critique a system if you have something reasonable to replace it with. Of course, the first step is to admit you have a problem…

So, though I’ll continue to throw pie in the face of smarmy defenders of capitalism who pretend that all is jolly, I pine for a vision of where to go from here.

It’s funny how we try to find meaning in everything.

This morning as I stepped outside the house I narrowly avoided the aerial bombardment of a squadron of pigeons. The payload landed directly in front of me and made a loud “SPLAT!”, like someone had spilled a bucketful of raw eggs across the steps. There must have been at least eight of the little shitters involved in the attack, but when I looked up I could only see one, perched on the edge of the roof with his ass hanging out cheekily. After my heart had stopped racing, I went back upstairs to make sure that none of it was in my hair or on my clothes (that’s happened before - nothing is more embarassing than being told you have bird shit in your hair) before heading out again, making sure to dart out quickly from the front door, in case they were planning a second barrage.

I went through the full range of emotional response: genocidal rage, paranoia (”There’s a pigeon on every wire!”), humiliation, fear. But in the end I was just left with a sort of confusion. I couldn’t help but try and draw meaning from my narrow escape - after all, only one second’s difference would have left me, err, soiled. And when you think about it, there’s no real qualitative difference between the disaster that I was saved from and escaping death by falling piano, chunk of masonry or tree downed in a thunderstorm. And it’s all too common to hear people thank Jehovah for saving them from that sort of cruel fate - why not me? Sure, my disaster is about fifty times sillier than death by falling masonry, but so what? Either you believe that there’s some divine spirit watching over you, deciding magnanimously that today, It is going to save your ass from the blender; or you believe that it’s all random shit, and Jehovah doesn’t give a fuck if you get bird ca-ca all over you, or you die, or what.

I think it’s pretty evident that there isn’t anything to it - I don’t think Jehovah spread his arms over me this morning and shielded me from a fate worse than death. But I did feel compelled to try and explain it that way. We’re odd creatures - we can’t just take adversity as it comes and accept it as haphazard and undirected. We want to see reason and purpose in everything - even bird defecation. But I think the sooner we give up on the idea of a just universe and a rational god watching over it, the better. Not because we’ll be happier, that way. Just less disappointed when God doesn’t pull through.

A gem from Union-basher Trent Lott:

“I love firefighters and policemen as individuals and as a group, [but] I don’t think much of their unions.”

This is from an article about firefighters who dislike being used by the Bush campaign. His administration has cut initiatives for their profession.

At least it seems that way. Or maybe it hurts more when it comes from women. I was an undergrad at Caltech, where the male to female ratio when I was there was roughly 3 to 1. Women got a lot of this crap:

“She’s dumb, and she only got into Caltech because she’s a woman.”

It was mostly women, to my recollection, who’d say stuff like that. Then there’d be things like: I would do math homework with a guy friend and a girl friend. I’d solve the math problem first. When the guy gave up trying to solve the problem, he asked for help and I explained my solution. Then when the girl gave up on the math problem, she asked the *guy* for help and completely ignored me even though it was me who had originally solved the problem.

Anyway, I’m angry about this again because in a current discussion between Caltech alums, the women are doing the same stuff again and assuming women are inferior and that for a school like MIT to have a 50/50 ratio it must automatically mean that MIT lowers the bar for women.

www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com

After the hostage standoff is resolved, coming home to Japan doesn’t always mean living happily ever after. According to the spokesman for the Japanese government, “”They may have gone on their own but they must consider how many people they caused trouble to because of their action.”

I can’t decide if this is better or worse than our own hero worship.

The young Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq returned home this week, not to the warmth of a yellow-ribbon embrace but to a disapproving nation’s cold stare.

Three of them, including a woman who helped street children on the streets of Baghdad, appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to slit their throats. A few days after their release, they landed here on Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm.

“You got what you deserve!” read one hand-written sign at the airport where they landed. “You are Japan’s shame,” another wrote on the Web site of one of the former hostages. They had “caused trouble” for everybody. The government, not to be outdone, announced it would bill the former hostages $6,000 for air fare.

….

Dr. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who examined the three former hostages twice since their return, said the stress they were enduring now was “much heavier” than what they experienced during their captivity in Iraq.

I made a resume today and applied for an office job at the co-op. They don’t say they’re hiring, but maybe I’ll get lucky. I’m giving up on the theater. Now that they have me working at cashier (sitting down), I realize how much standing up for an eight-hour shift was killing me. Plus, it’s the right time to leave the theater anyway. T. just moved back to the vineyard, and M. quit for a job selling jewelry.

The house is shaping up nicely. We get our sixth person in this week, so my rent will only be $265, which is good, ‘cuz that’s about how much I make at the theater. I hooked up the dryer yesterday, but we don’t have a hose, and the washer still doesn’t work because the drain is clogged. I can see how people enjoy this whole ‘home upkeep’ thing. It really feels productive to work on your house, even if it’s actually the landlord’s.

I’ll write something more interesting later. Peace and love to all you folks I haven’t seen in ages and have fun in DC if you’re going down there. Oh, and SA- I listed you as a reference for the co-op.

I hate science in this country. Specifically I hate pharmaceutical research. Recently someone discovered that turmeric can treat the most common cystic fibrosis variant, CFTR F508. Apparently some component of turmeric helps the mutant CFTR protein make it to the cell membrane and do its job. How do the researchers respond?

“[C]urcumin and curcumin derivatives represent promising new candidate compounds that may prove useful in the search for small-molecule pharmacotherapies for cystic fibrosis and for other protein-folding diseases”

Or, you could JUST EAT THE GODDAMN TURMERIC! Damn capitalism…

Of course, I might be biased, coming from a culture where people eat turmeric every damn day anyway. At least this answers my girlfriend’s question. (”What’s the point of adding this stuff? It doesn’t even taste like anything.”)