The hands fastened together behind the back, then the body hoisted into the air by the bound hands, goes back before antiquity. Hanging from the hands from the front is also very old, and leads to death usually in a few hours.
Please be aware that many people living in the United States support the Saddam Hussain government, torture and all. Opposition to our invasion of Iraq means you are in favor of government as the Ba'athists practice it. When their time comes, these people here in the United States will torture you and yours as willingly as Saddam's henchmen torture Iraqis.
And in Europe. Be assured this man didn't march "for peace" yesterday.
That may be true of some people but not all; opposition may be upon many grounds, some well thought out and some not.
If the current torture scale was the measure of invasion as the cure, we'd direct our efforts immediately upon liberating North Korea and Zimbabwe.
The supporters of Iraq, Zimbabwe, and North Korea, all have one thing in common: their pursuit of socialism as an end and varying degrees of torture and terrorism as the means to get there; and very few of them actually do believe in the "non-violent" approach. They do not respect your rights, they do not respect your property, they do not respect "the sanctity of human life," and whatever one may regard as their spirit, it is the essence of the current "religion" which does not believe in a loving God, nor in a loving Allah, but in self-indulgent adventures of the mind-less.
Careful examination of the surroundings still produces this result: War? OK, if we're going after the bad guys, and that means dropping the "diplomatic immunity" which President Bush as afforded others he said he would not tolerate.
Our Allies see a lack of committment, there, and our Allies moms and fathers of those who we wish would fight alongside us, do not have as close a connection with G. W. as do we --- it is more difficult for them to justify sending off their sons to fight with Americans who turn a blind eye to the immediate necessities of defending our borders and our property.
To wit: this is not a fight for lawyers and lawyering, but that is what it seems to be.
Americans will fight and win when our hearts are in it, but the foe must be evident enough for enough of us and the committment against the foe un-conditional.
At the moment, the path to war as a cure, is strewn with qualifications unfortunately administered, still, by the Clinton Legacy and certain holdovers of it by the White House.
If we're going to go to war, we're going to win --- and that means against the supporters of terrorism; and, well, that includes quite a lot of world-wide socialistas.
Chemicals and biology were not used in the above story. That torture is visited upon the victims of socialism around the world; Fidel Castro, for example, having been a chief practioner.
If we learn, upon arrival in Baghdad, that Cuba distributed some sampling of Anthrax, from Iraq, to "operatives" within the U.S., and it is they who mailed it in the fall of 2001, will we go to war against Cuba?
Until we are committed to tracking down enough of the sub-systems of torture and terror pertaining to Sept. 11th, and destroying them, it is not all that wise to start something we do not mean to finish.
We've tried that before, both against North Korea and North Vietnam, to our dissatisfaction.
What will we do if North Vietnam is found to have nuclear plants in development, well below the surface --- they are infamous for their tunnels --- though on the surface they seem to have a mind which is not as self-destructive as the North Koreans?
"We'll deal with that when it comes to it," some may say. And then suddenly, it comes to that, tomorrow, Monday, Feb. 17, 2003, that nuclear fuel, which gives off neutrons, is traced through North Vietnamese ports.
Well, it turns out that the North Vietnamese are not to blame; rather, it's a ploy of the Red Chinese, who are behind both the North Korea and the Iraqi nuclear weapons program.
What then will be our response to Red China? The country which has suddenly put out a world-wide recall for all its scientists abroad.
Now there, in the trade, is what we call a "red rocket."
And again, I understate.
What we need most now is buildup of our logistics and personnel, and lots and lots of training.
Because Iraq is merely the lid of a box; and instead of thinking inside the box, we must also think outside the box.