Welcome friends, to the Carnival of Pat Boone’s Mind, and it’s many midway-like amusements and oddities. Today we’ll be visiting the Museum of Metaphors for Negro Sexual Potency.
Now, let’s pay the man our 25¢ and see what’s inside this first tent…
I was kind of hoping he’d bite the head off a chicken, but you pays your money, you takes your chances. Anyway, Pat is a patriot, and believes that before 9/11, we as a nation never tortured, except when we did, and even then it was “always within humane limits – never the torture racks, lashings, beatings, burnings, nail-pullings, starvation, or sadistic mutilation practiced by so many other cultures and adversaries. We’ve expected our military to extract and obtain essential information through intelligent, often covert, sometimes even psychological means.”
In other words, we weren’t like the Viet Cong in The Deer Hunter, we were more like the Nazis in Where Eagles Dare, with their monocles and cigarette holders, who tut-tutted about those uncouth beer hall louts in the Gestapo and sipped snifters of Napoleon brandy as they suavely interrogated their foes.
What happened? Something almost unprecedented. We were completely blindsided, attacked on our own soil, in our own airplanes and towers, and even in the Pentagon, in broad daylight. It was devastating, and after the first shock, it was obvious that if we did not act quickly and with almost no thought of normal restraint, it would happen again, and even more violently, and with even more catastrophic results.
While ordinary Americans responded to the attack by helping complete strangers find their friends and loved ones, standing in line for hours to give blood, and bringing food and water to rescue workers, our leaders met in the citadels of power, assessed the situation, and made the cool, calculated decision to panic.
We were at war, against an enemy with absolutely no moral compunction and with a demonic bloodlust to destroy us, our homes and families and way of life – and with even a religious desire to die while destroying us! It was a relentless waking nightmare, and it was real.
Well, it was actually a few thousand suicidal malcontents who’d pretty much popped their wad, but it was also a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket to do whatever the hell you want without being questioned by Congress, the opposition party, or the press, as long as you could keep the country thinking it was real.
Pat goes on to concede that yes, “in some instances some interrogators” tortured prisoners, but torture isn’t a crime unless you talk about it. That’s the real crime. It’s like Fight Club.
It came to be known worldwide because liberal media, abetted by a few political and military figures who didn’t seem to grasp the urgency of stopping the maniacal plots against innocent civilians, revealed classified information and screamed “TORTURE!” Having no clue about how to get to the essential information some other way, but perhaps imagining themselves in the position of the captive, they just condemned those who were actually getting the job done at least in part.
Anti-torture activists would have considerably greater moral authority if they’d stop imagining the effects of having water forced into your lungs, and instead put themselves in the shoes of a harried, frustrated torturer who hasn’t gotten a good confession all day, and it’s already 4:35 on a Friday.
Almost ignored in all the anti-American clamor was the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, confessed mastermind of the World Trade Center carnage, as a result of being “waterboarded” 130 times
– give or take 53 times.
– with no lasting damage at all – finally divulged information that thwarted the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge
– by morons who planned to melt the suspension cables with blow torches. Not exactly the kind of terrorist plot you’d need Batman to foil.
and saved an estimated 10,000 innocent lives! So the technique, harsh as it is, proved effective.
And success — measured a certain way — is its own reward, so waterboarding our enemies, while illegal and unAmerican, is morally just. However, if Pat decides that your individual health insurance is metaphorically torturing him, then you’re a war criminal.
And now, whether expressly intended or not, America is being waterboarded!
The nation – its economy and political body – has been strapped down, blindfolded and hosed. A new administration, empowered by control of both houses of Congress and the most liberal president in history, is immersing us all in a torrent of debt. While we gasp for breath and try to cry “Time out!” we continue to be flooded with staggering commitments…
But Pat, you already said if it works, it’s okay. No tag-backs!
The American people have long opposed abortion, same sex “marriage,” universal, socialistic health care and a host of other ultraliberal causes; current polls confirm we still do.
These same polls also show that Reagan is certain to beat Mondale in the upcoming election.
But the waterboarding began, literally, within the first three days of this new administration. With no instigation from Congress, the freshman president picked up his new hose of authority
That sound you hear is Pat’s testicles reascending. Anyway, let’s see what’s in the next tent on the midway…
And now, while we’re strapped down by the Democrat-controlled Congress, gasping and gulping beneath a flood of strong-arm tactics
Ah, Pat’s Secret Fantasies!
the “health reform” bill taking shape outlines a “minimum-benefits package” that will be universal – that is, required of every American’s insurance plan, whether provided by a private firm or by the government.
You know, the CIA could have saved a lot of time if they’d forgone the stress positions, the “walling,” the waterboarding, the sleep deprivation, and just sat Khalid Sheikh Mohammed down and calmly informed him that if he didn’t talk — right this fucking minute! — the U.S. government would pass a health insurance mandate and he’d be forced to buy a comprehensive policy with a low deductible.
But we’re not helpless yet, folks. We’re drenched and near-drowned and gasping for breath, but there’s a growing coalition of staunch Republican and “blue dog” Democrats in both houses of Congress digging in their heels and saying, “Wait! This is all too much, too fast! We need time to read and digest and consider this torrent of legislation. Mr. President, hold off!”
It apparently worked for KSM the 183rd time he asked.
And that gives us debt-soaked citizens a chance to rise up and gasp and spit and shout: “MR. PRESIDENT, AND YOU, TOO, CONGRESS! YOU WORK FOR US! NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! WE VOTED YOU IN! AND WE CAN TAKE YOU OUT!
Remember kids: Torture is a crime and a moral abomination, but only so long as it’s figurative. In the real world, it’s still safe, legal, and effective.
STOP THIS WATERBOARDING!!”
Pat Boone is President of the Imaginary Human Rights Campaign Against Metaphorical Torture.