je suis toujours charlie

Posted on January 9, 2015 by greg

First, let me make a request. If you have something to say about anything I’ve written here, I’d prefer you say it in the comments rather than send me an email. That way your point of view will be most accurately represented.

I received some email (well, a few emails…okay, three…I received three emails) that I think deserve a response. Two of them essentially suggested Stéphane Charbonnier and his compatriots at Charlie Hebdo were at least marginally complicit in their own murders. Neither writer actually said that directly, but it seemed implicit. I should also say both writers were firm in stating that there was absolutely no justification for the murder of the twelve people killed in the attack. Both were explicit in stating they were passionate supporters of free expression. However, both took the “don’t poke a stick at a mad dog” approach.

Charbonnier was an egotistical narcissist. He knew he was provoking a group who responded to insults with violence, yet he insisted on doing it — and now there are twelve families who’ve lost loved one. All because Charb wanted to be a bad boy.

And this:

They knew those offensive cartoons of Muhommed [sic] would be insulting, they didn’t have to publish them, but they did anyways. What did they expect? That the terrorists would write a strongly-worded letter to the editor?

Were the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo being reckless? Yeah, probably. But that’s the thing about free expression, isn’t it. If you limit it to ‘reasonable’ speech, then it’s no longer free expression. If free expression doesn’t protect the extremes, then it’s worthless.

“I am the Prophet, fool!”

The third email misinterpreted my point entirely. Or maybe I simply wasn’t as clear as I’d hoped to be. Here’s the meat of his email:

It’s long past time people started saying fuck you to Muslim terrorists. They should republish every comic that insults Mohammed.

I wasn’t saying ‘fuck you’ to Muslim terrorists. Well, yeah, okay, I was saying that, but not JUST to Muslim terrorists. I was saying ‘fuck you’ to ALL extremists who think violence is an acceptable way to express disagreement or to silence those who disagree with them. That same ‘fuck you’ applies to Christians who shoot abortion providers, to Sovereign Citizens who shoot law enforcement officers, to environmentalists who set traps that hurt or kill loggers, even to that woman in Vancouver who put logs and rocks on mountain bike trails.

Let me also say this: if anybody is using the attack on Charlie Hebdo to justify their hatred of Islam, then that ‘fuck you’ applies to them too.

Little Jesus

Finally, there’s this — a comment addressed to me on Facebook that was unfortunately removed before I could respond:

Greg, respectfully, if someone firebombs Westboro Baptist Church, are you going to change your avatar to ‘Je Suis GodHatesFags” by the same rationale? They operate under the same freedoms and would have been attacked by the same type of motives.

It’s a tragedy that this all happened; to pretend it was an attack on free speech is naive. It was an attack by twisted people against deliberate antagonism and provocation. I’m not excusing anything; the murderers were wrong in the worst of ways. But nobody gains anything by cartoons showing Muslim women with burkas shoved up their asses, or someone else’s prophet being born out of a man’s asshole, or posing in a pornographic film, or whatever, unless bigotry and dehumanizing people for the sake of doing so is your thing. It’s not for me.

That’s a perfectly valid response, and those are valid opinions. Would I change my avatar to Je suis GodHatesFags? No, of course not. But I would defend (and have defended) the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to express their ugly opinions. Here’s the difference between the WBS and Charlie Hebdo: the WBC is claiming only one viewpoint (theirs, of course) is valid and deserving of respect, whereas Charlie Hebdo has been saying no viewpoint is deserving of unqualified respect.

Nobody gains anything from the Charlie Hebdo cartoons? I disagree. Yes, many of them are offensive. Deliberately offensive. Intended to offend. But Charlie Hebdo has been an equal opportunity offender; they offended everybody with equal enthusiasm. I’d argue that society at large gains from that approach, if only because it expands the range of acceptable opinions.

Is this offensive? Yes, totally.

Here’s a true thing: the writers and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo did nothing to elevate the marketplace of ideas. But they certainly contributed to it. They actively participated in the marketplace of ideas. They took the position that nothing is so important that it can’t be mocked. They said the more important a person or an idea is, the more that person or idea needs to be mocked. Nothing is sacred.

Yes, a lot of their cartoons are offensive and childish and mocking and unfair — and bless them for it. Are some of their cartoons racist? Yes…and no. They certainly used racial and ethnic stereotypes, but from what I’ve seen they used them to mock racial and ethnic stereotypes (which, by the way, is the same approach used by R. Crumb). Are some of the cartoons cruel? Yes. Do they make a point? Yes. We may not all agree with their point or the way they make it, but it’s hard to argue that the cartoons are…well, pointless.

Is THIS racist? Well, yeah, it is.

One way to look at Charlie Hebdo is through the lens of that Hans Christian Anderson tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Charlie Hebdo is the crude, irritating, badly-behaved child along the parade route who makes farting noises and points and laughs and makes fun of the Emperor’s bare ass.

Are there better ways to point out the Emperor’s bare ass? Yes, absolutely. But if we’re to protect free expression, we have to defend the right of publications like Charlie Hebdo to be offensive. It’s not necessary to approve of Charlie Hebdo. But it is important to support them — especially now.

je suis charlie

Posted on January 7, 2015 by greg

I’m only vaguely familiar with Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine — and I’m only familiar with it at all because it’s so often been involved in controversy. I became aware of the magazine in 2011 when the magazine’s office was firebombed for publishing an edition with this cover:

100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter.

It’s a cheezy cartoon, but a great line. One hundred lashes if you’re not dying of laughter.

Today at least twelve people died — were killed, to be exact — in another attack on the magazine, Three more were wounded and are in critical condition. Two of the dead are police officers — one who was detailed to protect the magazine office, and another who apparently responded to the scene on a bicycle. The rest of the dead were employees of the magazine — the editor, cartoonists, writers, support staff.

They were killed by two or three masked men armed with Kalashnikov rifles. Killed for publishing cartoons and articles that offended some Muslim extremists. The operative term there is extremists. It’s always the fucking extremists who engage in this sort of cowardly bullshit. And it IS cowardly, and it IS bullshit.

Stéphane Charbonnier, one of today’s dead, outside the firebombed office of Charlie Hebdo in 2011.

It’s cowardly because this is the act of people who are afraid. If you’re confident in your faith, then an insult to it can’t hurt you. Be offended by the insult, certainly, but to silence the people who made the insult — to silence them by killing them, to hope to silence others by the killing — is effectively saying your faith and your religion are too weak to withstand mockery. And it’s bullshit because all this does is heap more scorn and loathing on the religion these jackasses are trying to ‘protect’.

Charlie Hebdo attackers killing a police officer as he’s defenseless on the ground.

People will talk about finding an ‘appropriate’ response to this attack. There IS NO APPROPRIATE RESPONSE to extremists killing people over cartoons and caricatures. There is only a range of inappropriate responses. Here’s my personal inappropriate response:

Fuck you.

Fuck you, if you think this is going to help your cause. Fuck you for being so stupid and hateful and afraid. Fuck you if you think this will stop people from mocking Islam or the Prophet Mohammed. Fuck you, because I’m going to buy a subscription to Charlie Hebdo, even though I don’t read French. Fuck you with a passion for thinking you can silence people who disagree with you. Fuck you for thinking you have the right to shut people up. Fuck you and your pathetic guns, and fuck you and your stupid masks, and fuck you for shitting on Paris and on France and on the world. Fuck you, you gutless jerkwads, you deserve any ridicule that’s directed at you. Fuck you in the neck.

You think you did something brave? You think you struck a blow for Islam? Well, fuck you. You made Charlie Hebdo famous. You made people all over the world stand up and say “Je suis Charlie.”

And when I say “I am Charlie” what I’m really saying is this: fuck you. I hope you and every other extremist in every cause and in every religion is listening. Fuck you. All of you. Fuck. You.

oblique nouveau-neo-new topographics

Posted on January 5, 2015 by greg

Twice in the last couple of weeks I’ve been asked about my ‘photographic style.’ The first time I basically said “Dunno, never thought about it.” I mean, who thinks about stuff like that? The second time I said “New Topo, laid on its side, and turned 45 degrees to the left.” I said it as a joke, but after I said it, I sorta kinda became the type of person who thinks about stuff like that. And hey, it turned out to be sorta kinda true.

Back in 1975 a guy named William Jenkins curated an exhibition of a new school of landscape photography: the New Topographics movement. Landscape photography to that point in time had generally followed the path of landscape painting, which for the most part consisted of romantic depictions of ‘undisturbed’ nature. We either had the Ansel Adams approach (epic vistas photographed on a grand scale in black and white) or the Eliot Porter approach (intimate color images of a few trees or a handful of leaves scattered on a pond). Nothing wrong with either approach, but that was basically it.

Traditional New Topo approach

Then along came Jenkins and his New Topo crew. His exhibition consisted of 168 black-and-white prints of warehouses, industrial sites, suburban tract housing, filling stations. The idea behind the exhibition was to present the modern landscape as it actually existed rather than in an idealized way. Most art photographers used the camera as a device for self-expression. The New Topographics photographers reduced the camera to its most basic function.

The camera, after all, is a tool that records everything in front of the lens. Every goddamned thing, not just the pretty stuff or the majestic stuff. And it records it all with the same precision. It records with a detached, unemotional, deadpan eye. That’s all a camera does. With that idea in mind, New Topo photographers deliberately attempted to remove any notion of ‘artistry’ from the act of photography. Their intent was to depict the objects in front of the lens in a way that merely mapped their surface. In other words, to reduce the subject of the photograph to an essentially topographic state.

Neo-New Topo

The exhibition garnered a lot of attention. Not all of it was positive. Hell, relatively little of it was positive. Most folks thought the photographs were bland, uninteresting, boring, even ugly. And hey, those folks were right. I tend to agree. In my opinion, a lot of those photos really were butt-ugly. But they were interesting.

People who thought about photography as an art — not just viewed it, but consciously and deliberately thought about what photography was and could be — those folks found the exhibition fascinating. Why? In part because they realized the emotionally detached camera opened up a visual world in which people could see the stuff that had previously been filtered out. The ugly stuff. The old tires, the broken sidewalks, the trash cans, the old telephone wires, the litter. All the crap photographers normally worked hard to exclude from their photographs.

Nouveau-Neo-New Topo

But there was a problem. Humankind has spent something like twelve thousand years unconsciously building the foundation of aesthetics. It’s really difficult to just toss all that aside. It’s hard NOT to look for beauty, hard NOT to try to include that beauty in a photograph. That’s a lot of human nature to overcome.

So a sort of Neo-New Topographics style emerged fairly quickly (and yeah, I just made that name up). It’s a style in which photographers still photographed the same anonymous human-shaped landscapes, and continued to objectively map the surfaces of whatever is in front of the lens — but with the recognition that even industrial sites and warehouses can be beautiful. And after that, a Nouveau-Neo-New Topo approach, in which photographers actively sought out what beauty can be found through surface mapping.

Oblique Nouveau-Neo-New Topo

That idea has become a big chunk of my photographic patch. Over the last few years I’ve been working in a sort of Oblique Nouveau-Neo-New Topo style. Surface mapping at a slant. New Topo, laid on its side, and turned 45 degrees. Because I prefer my surface to have depth. I like a surface that extends itself. A surface that sort of falls away.

ONNNT (which is also the sound a Canada Goose makes when landing in icy water)

I can’t really say that’s my ‘style’ since I shoot all sorts of crap. But when I’m deliberately looking and seeing photographically, that’s pretty much my default approach. Find an interesting surface — then either photograph it straight or find an angle that allows the eye to shift off into the distance. Oblique Nouveau-Neo-New Topo. Takes longer to say than to shoot.

But hey, at least now I have a response the next time somebody asks me about my photographic style. ONNNT.

The photo that sparked the question the second time.

a tragedy

Posted on January 1, 2015 by greg

Okay, yeah…it’s a tragedy. The two-year-old who accidentally shot and killed his momma in a Hayden, Idaho Walmart. The toddler who managed to find his momma’s handgun in her specially-designed-to-carry-a-handgun purse, then squeeze off a single round that hit his momma in the head. It’s a complete, horrific, total tragedy.

It’s a tragedy that poor kid will have to relive over and over. As he grows up he’ll want to know how his momma died. As he gets to know new people — at school, at college, at work — they’ll ask about his family. He’ll have to tell — or think about telling — the story of how he accidentally and inadvertently killed his own momma thousands of times. It’s unspeakably tragic.

And not at all surprising. This shit happens all the time, kids accidentally shooting people. Parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, friends, strangers, pets. It happens all the damned time, all across These United States. It happens for obvious reasons.

It happens because kids are curious. They play with things. They want to handle new things. It’s what kids are supposed to do. They see things, they pick them up, they explore them. Toys, guns, fruit, dog turds, cell phones, staplers, doesn’t matter — kids will pick them up and mess around with them.

It happens because kids learn really early about how to hold and shoot a handgun. They may not understand exactly what a handgun does, but by the time they’re toddlers they’ve seen tens of thousands of images on television and in movies of people holding guns. Kids learn by imitation. Of course they’re going to play with a gun if they find it.

It happens because that’s what guns are designed to do. Kill things. Firearms really are an incredibly efficient technology. Masterpieces of design. Their only function — and let me repeat that; their only function — is to explosively propel a missile at high speed toward a target.

Unbeatable prices! Save money! Live better!

It happens all the goddamned time at big box stores like Walmart because big box stores are essentially fixed point attractors. People congregate there. It happened in Columbus, Indiana; it happened in Phoenix, Arizona; it happened in Antioch, Callifornia; it happened in Jasper, Indiana. Hell, there’s a website devoted to nothing but shootings at Walmart.

It happens because here in These United States we have a gun fetish problem. We have a culture that romanticizes firearms, and celebrates the people who use them. We have a culture that places a higher priority on firearm ownership than on health and safety. We’ve created a culture of fear and suspicion that’s so pervasive, some folks actually believe it’s necessary to be armed to visit Walmart.

Happy Walmart customers

So yeah, it’s tragic that a two-year-old boy accidentally shot his momma in the head while they were shopping at Walmart. But that shit happens all the time. And nothing will change because of it. And that, of course, is the deeper tragedy.

Editorial note: You can buy a large assortment of firearms and ammunition at Walmart; their prices are unbeatable.

you’re looking in the wrong direction

Posted on December 31, 2014 by greg

You know what’s fucked up? Well, okay — a lot of things are fucked up. But one of the fucked uppedest things is network news reporting.

Yesterday evening I watched NBC Nightly News attempt to cover the recent report on law enforcement fatalities. The coverage resembled an actual news broadcast: great graphics, dramatic and energetic voices, engaging video, concerned frowns on the earnest faces of the reporters. But basically the report was a shit sandwich. The ‘reporting’ was accurate, but misleading. Here are some of the claims made:

“…an enormous jump from last year in the number of police killed in shooting incidents.”

“…a 56% increase in the number of police officers killed by gunfire in the last year.”

“…a growing anti-government sentiment may be triggering the attacks.”

Following that last comment, the report shifted to video of the recent protests over the number of police shooting incidents involving unarmed black men. The suggestion was pretty clear: anger at the police in the African-American community was responsible for the increase in police officer fatalities.

And right there, that’s the shit in the shit sandwich.

Combination image shows mourning bands placed over different police badges at the funeral of slain NYPD officer Rafael Ramos at Christ Tabernacle Church in the Queens borough of New York

126 law enforcement officers died while on duty in 2014

First, let me point out that the anti-police protests really aren’t anti-police protests; they’re anti-police-shooting-unarmed-black-folks protests. I think that needs to be stated pretty clearly. You can support the police and still be pissed off at them for killing folks who aren’t a threat.

Now, the meat of the story. Yesterday the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund released its preliminary annual report on officer fatalities. The data are reliable. One hundred twenty-six LEOs were killed while on duty this year. Fifty of them were killed by gunfire this year. That’s not in dispute.

But is that an ‘enormous jump’, as the news report claims? Well, yes and no. Last year 32 officers were killed by gunfire. So yeah — fifty is a big jump compared to thirty-two. But guess what. The average number of LEO deaths by gunfire over the last ten years is fifty-three. So no, it’s not really an enormous jump at all. It’s actually a wee bit below average. That got left out. So the news ‘report’ was accurate, but misleading.

The news ‘report’ also stressed that fifteen of the fifty LEOs who died by gunfire were killed in ‘ambush attacks.’ Although the term isn’t actually defined in the report, it appears they’re talking about incidents in which LEOs are murdered 1) simply because they’re law enforcement officers and 2) shot while they were unaware they were being targeted. And yeah, that’s pretty fucking alarming.

Ismaaiyl Brinsley – fuckwit, cop killer

But here’s the problem: the ‘news’ account conflates ambush attacks with the protests against police violence. Why? On account of Ismaaiyl Brinsley. He’s the jackass who gut-shot his girlfriend in Baltimore, stole her cellphone, hopped on a bus to NYC, where he shot and killed two NYPD officers. Brinsley left messages on social media saying he was going to ‘put wings on pigs’ as some sort of idiotic revenge for the deaths of two unarmed black men killed by police officers in two different states. Yeah, maybe — but it seems more likely Brinsley just wanted to do something ‘big’ before he killed himself (he’d attempted suicide at least once before).

But based on that one ambush attack, the ‘news report’ hinted that anti-police anger is responsible for all fifteen officers who were killed in ambush attacks. That suggestion is absolute bullshit.

The reporters got one thing right, though. They cited the reports concern that “a growing anti-government sentiment may be triggering the attacks.” And that, folks, is a fact. Yes, it surely is.

Eric Frein – sovereign citizen, cop killer

But the ‘news report’ focused on black anti-government anger. The biggest threat to LEOs today doesn’t come from young black men who are pissed off because so many young black men are killed by police. The real threat to LEOs comes from white, well-armed, angry, right-wing, anti-government, sovereign citizen extremists who are pissed off because — well, they have a lot of irrational reasons for being pissed off. Something to do with the 14th Amendment, banking, taxes, and (I swear I’m not making this up) an amendment to the US Constitution proposed in 1810 dealing with (seriously, NOT making this up) titles of nobility.

I’m talking about people like Eric Frein, who set up an ambush outside a Pennsylvania State Police barracks, then murdered Cpl. Bryon Dickson as he walked out the door. He also seriously wounded another Trooper and fired on others as they tried to rescue Dickson. I’m talking about Curtis Holley, who set fire to the house he was renting, waited for the first responders to arrive, then opened fire. He killed Deputy Christopher L. Smith of the Leon County, Florida Sheriff’s Department. I’m talking about Jared and Amanda Miller. These two fuckwits actually strolled around the city of Las Vegas with a shopping cart full of weapons without drawing any police attention — at least not until they ambushed and killed two LVPD officers who were having lunch. Then they entered a nearby Wal-Mart and waited for more police to arrive.

Curtis Wade Holley – sovereign citizen, cop killer

And it’s not just ambush attacks. These sovereign citizens are also the biggest threat when it comes to traffic stops (eight of 2014’s line-of-duty fatalities occurred during traffic stops). Because they don’t believe they’re required to have license tags on their vehicles, sovereign citizens get stopped a lot. And because they also believe they have an absolute right to carry a firearm at all times, they’re generally well-armed — and know how to use their weapons. And because sovereign citizens are almost exclusively white, they’re less likely to be confronted for openly carrying weapons.

These guys are a serious threat. That’s not me talking; that’s the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. In their 2014 report they identified sovereign citizens as “law enforcement’s top concern.” Islamic extremists? Number two. In fact, four of the five top concerns were occupied by right-wing extremist groups. The FBI has labeled sovereign citizens as a domestic terror group.

Jared and Amanda Miller – sovereign citizens, cop killers

So when you read or hear news reports about how anti-police protesters are a threat to the police, ignore that shit. When you read or hear news reports claiming anti-police protesters are stirring up anti-government sentiment, look at the people who are actively attacking the government. When you read or hear news reports how anti-police protesters have blood on their hands, look at who owns the guns and who’s doing the shooting.

The black kid playing with a toy gun in the park isn’t a threat. The black guy selling loose cigarettes on the street isn’t a threat. That white guy driving a pick-up without a proper license tag and a gun rack in the back? He’s the threat.

a fucking outrage

Posted on December 28, 2014 by greg

“It’s a fucking outrage, is what it is.”
“It is. Fucking outrage.”
“Shot and killed for no reason.”
“No reason at all, at all.”
“You can’t just go shooting and killing people because they belong to some group you don’t like.”
“Can’t do that. Fucking outrage.”
“Flat out murder, is what it was.”
“Can’t argue with that. Murder, flat out.”
“What the fuck was he thinking?”
“Got no idea. None. Not sure he was thinking. Just started shooting.”
“Opened fire, then went off and killed himself.”
“He killed himself? I didn’t know that. Jeeze.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what he did. Killed himself.”
“I guess he felt guilty.”
“My ass.”
“You don’t think he felt guilty?”
“Not a bit.”
“I dunno, man. Then why’d he kill himself?”
“How the fuck should I know. And now everybody’s making it a race thing.”
“Maybe because it was a race thing.”
“You crazy? Race had nothing to do with it.”
“Bullshit, race had everything to do with it.”
“Something to do with it, maybe. Shooter was black, but that’s…”
“No he wasn’t. He was white.”
“He was black. That’s why killed those cops.”
“Who killed cops? The fuck you talking about?”
“The fuck YOU talking about?”
“About that kid in Ohio. Cops pulled up, shot the black kid dead in, like, two seconds. Kid was like twelve years old.”
“I’m talking about those two cops got shot and killed in New York City.”
“They wouldn’t have shot that kid…”
“He wouldn’t have shot those cops…”
“…if he was white.”
“…if they were black.”
“It’s a fucking outrage.”
“A fucking outrage, is what it is.”

Tamir Rice

Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu

i received a note from a friend

Posted on December 16, 2014 by greg

Ten days ago, as I was packing to go house-sit for my brother, I received a note from a friend.

That sounds so simple, so mundane. I received a note from a friend. But it wasn’t just a note. It was a hand-written note. Hand-written in ink. Written in ink with a lovely, idiosyncratic fist. Written in ink on fine paper — paper thoughtfully chosen, with a graphic that holds a personal meaning to me. Written in ink and posted in an envelope with a delightful and eccentric selection of postage stamps

Hand-written in ink. Think about that. When putting ink to paper, the writer has only one chance. There’s no possibility to correct a mistake in ink, so the writing must be exact. But perfect exactitude in writing usually feels mechanical — pretty, perhaps, but without any true sense of personality. So in order to write fluidly and expressively in ink, the writer must be relaxed but deliberate.

There’s a concept in Buddhism called mushin, which is generally translated as ‘no mind.’ Basically, that means emptying the mind of crap-baggage like ego and expectation and fear. The idea is that letting go of any concern about the end product allows you to be focused on what you’re doing with a level of intensity that wouldn’t be possible to achieve if you were consciously thinking about it. Mushin in writing is to write unencumbered by expectations, free of the burden of perfection, embracing imperfection, accepting the perfect beauty of the imperfect.

I received a note from a friend. But he’s not a traditional friend. I’ve never met Fernando. I’d very much like to — but if I never do meet him, that’s perfectly okay. The internet, after all, has completely redefined the concept of friendship. It’s no longer limited by physical proximity; instead it’s grounded in shared interests. I ‘get’ Fernando. I may not always understand him, but I ‘get’ him. So yes, even though I’ve never met him, he’s definitely a friend. A friend made possible only through of the existence of the internet.

So ten days ago I received a note from a friend while I was packing to go house-sit. I read the note. Read it again. Knew I wanted to write about it, and set it on a table so I’d remember to take it with me. It was still there on the table when I got back home last night.

Here are the last two lines of the note:

There are just too few people one crosses paths in life that one can stop and make an effort to appreciate. (Their [something] is to be punished by trying to figure out my handwriting).

Fernando’s handwriting is…let’s say it’s free of the burden of perfection. And that makes it absolutely perfect.

without unnecessary conversation

Posted on December 11, 2014 by greg

Over the last couple of days I’ve been looking over the summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on the CIA’s ‘Detention and Interrogation Program’. It’s pretty appalling. It’s hard to single out the most reprehensible fact, but this certainly comes pretty close:

According to CIA records, interrogators began using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques at DETENTION SITE COBALT a “few minutes” after the questioning of KSM began. KSM was subjected to facial and abdominal slaps, the facial grab, stress positions, standing sleep deprivation (with his hands at or above head level), nudity, and water dousing.” Chief of Interrogations [name redacted] also ordered the rectal rehydration of KSM without a determination of medical need, a procedure that the chief of interrogations would later characterize as illustrative of the interrogator’s “total control over the detainee.”

KSM is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And rectal rehydration — what, exactly, is that?

[T]he medical officer who subjected KSM to rectal rehydration, the officer wrote that, “w]hat I infer is that you get a tube up as far as you can, then open the IV wide. No need to squeeze the bag – let gravity do the work… [W]e used the largest Ewal [sic] tube we had.” The “lunch tray” consisted of “hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins” which was pureed and “rectally infused.”

Again, there was no medical reason for this. It was simply used as part of the program to break Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. At least five detainees were subjected to rectal rehydration. Other detainees were subjected to rectal exams that, according to the report, were conducted with “excessive force.” Still more were threatened with rectal rehydration.

Some CIA defenders have suggested the rectal rehydration was medically necessary as a response to a hunger strike. That’s bullshit. Hunger strikes have certainly taken place (and, I believe, continue to take place) in Guantanamo, but there are ways of dealing with them that don’t require jamming a large-bore plastic tube up some guy’s ass. The Senate report describes how medical personnel “implemented various techniques to provide fluids and nutrients, including the use of a nasogastric tube and the provision of intravenous fluids” to insure hunger strikers received nourishment. In fact, one hunger striker, Majid Khan, even cooperated with that practice.

CIA records indicate that Majid Khan cooperated with the feedings and was permitted to infuse the fluids and nutrients himself. After approximately three weeks, the CIA developed a more aggressive treatment regimen “without unnecessary conversation.” Majid Khan was then subjected to involuntary rectal feeding and rectal hydration.

Without unnecessary conversation. Lawdy. Then again, I suppose if you’ve decided to torture and sexually humiliate somebody, what’s the point of chatting about it first?

But here’s the thing — under most state laws, what the CIA called ‘rectal rehydration’ would be considered rape. Federal law at the time these horrors took place still defined rape as “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” Under federal law, it was impossible to rape a man. Since then, the Department of Justice has changed the law to include men is victims. The law now includes the following in the definition of rape:

The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. (emphasis added)

These men were raped. These men, while in U.S. custody, were deliberately raped as part of a program designed to break their spirit. They were raped by U.S. operatives in a conscious effort to sexually humiliate them. They were raped purely as a means to assert control over them, to demonstrate the ability of the United States to do whatever the hell we wanted, to impose our will on them in any way we wanted.

Rape, of course, is a crime. Systematic rape as a tactic in war is included by the International Criminal Court as a crime against humanity. The authorization of systematic rape is also a war crime.

And the Bush administration’s justification for this? We were afraid. The U.S. had been attacked on 9/11/2001 and we were afraid. We were afraid, so we tortured people and sexually humiliated them. We were — and still are — so afraid of terrorists that we allowed them to terrorize us into betraying ourselves.

A year and a half ago I said we’d become a nation of fear-biters. Not much has changed.

gregfallis.com

it's this or get a real job