Critics claim that enhanced techniques do not produce good intelligence because people will say anything to get the techniques to stop. But the memos note that, “as Abu Zubaydah himself explained with respect to enhanced techniques, ‘brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship.” In other words, the terrorists are called by their faith to resist as far as they can – and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know. This is because of their belief that “Islam will ultimately dominate the world and that this victory is inevitable.” The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely. (#)
‘Liberated to speak freely’ … as if the flesh was made out of faith, a too-heavy body obscuring the spark of light lingering beneath it, rational and desirous of this excruciating burden of freedom.
It makes me wonder whether this former speechwriter for George W. Bush profers this justification to us cynically. But I do not think so. I think this is how people who do so such things think of their actions, and the most horrifying part to me is that maybe they do not feel this thing that they have done, at night in that part of oneself that one cannot hide from.
That such a one could be at peace in their soul, even the public champion of the liberation of the Islamic body through torture.
What must we do to preclude the utterance of such statements? How do we make this unacceptable?
Absalom, Absalom! 