Get out the Rack

The Underpants Bomber has brought out the usual in the right wing nut farm. Dik Chainey wants Obama to strap the boy to the rack and water board his ass for a few days. Arch Bishop Pat Buchannon wants the Underpants Bomber turned over to the military and locked away forever in Guantanamo. Tom "How far up Dik Chainey's Ass Do You Want Me to Go" Ridge has lost all faith in the American legal system. He claims that if we extend basic civil rights to our enemies they will be let out on the street to kill again. The basic facts are these. The Underpants Bomber is singing like a canary. The best guess is that he probably does not really know much, since he is a stupid child who was duped by the real bad asses over in Yemen into undertaking this effort and they probably took pains not to let him know more than he needed to know. Moreover, as if we had to repeat it, torture does not work. Intelligence that we get from torture is almost universally made up to satisfy the torturer and make the pain stop. The Underpants Bomber is being handled exactly the same way the Shoe Bomber was handled. Given his Miranda, offered the best legal counsel. He will be tried in a court of law by the citizens he tried to kill and I suspect they will do their duty. The Shoe Bomber is doing life without parole in a maximum security prison of our choosing and we expect him to die there. By the way, Tom Ridge was head of Homeland Security at the time the Shoe Bomber was apprehended, Dik Chainey was vice president and emperor and Pat Buchannon was a loud-mouthed chorister for the Busches working the MSNBC beat. Shoey pled guilty to avoid a trial. Chainey used torture to get better lies to cover up his incompetence and paper over his phony war against Iraq. He loves torture. Ridge has no mind of his own and so he backs whatever the Dark Lord wants. Archbishop Buchannon has fantasies of a new inquisition. He sees dungeons at Guantanamo filled with infidels awaiting the rack while the Archbishop, wearing red vestments and a princely mitre, murmers secret latin poems to calm the screaming. I wonder if Chainey would have the guts to run for office on a ritual torture platform. Say, he promises that ritual nationally televised torture of some random Infidel once a month will keep away the evil terrorists. It could be a reality TV show. Make a million bucks. Let the audience vote on who lives or who dies. Have guest celebrity torturers. Maybe that's what the Busch administration was shooting for?