Give Torture a Chance

Well, there's been a real uproar over the recent changes in the law regarding torture. From what I understand it's that we Americans didn't abide by torture so we outsourced it to other countries. Then you had people complaining about taking jobs away from American torturers, so they opened up American torture centers right here in the good old U.S. of A as not to let what happen to General Motors or telemarketers happen to our torture industry.

Now a lot of Americans are upset about the idea of Americans torturing other people. But I say to those people: you haven't given it a chance. No, I'm not talking about maybe getting tainted intelligence from people so crazed by pain that they might say anything to make it stop. I'm talking about the spin-off benefits. Just like the billions upon billions spent on our space program brought us Teflon and Velcro, the torture industry may bring us many unintended consequences.

Did you know that the ancient Chinese had a torture technique called "Death by a Thousand Needles?" Did you know that the Chinese also invented acupuncture? A coincidence? I think not. I can easily see the victim, an enemy of the Chinese emperor, you know, the one with all the vases (Lenox?), tied to a table with 999 needles stuck into various parts of his body. The team leader would hover about the victim's head demanding information. And yet the man manages to withstand the piercing pain of 999 needles.

So the team leader announces, "Are you going to tell me what we need to know?"

The victim boldly cries out, "Never."

Then the team leader signals his assistant to insert the one thousandth needle into the victim.

The team leader, with a sickly, evil smile says, "How does that feel?"

Slowly, the victim responds, "Actually, that one feels pretty good. Yeah, it does. My elbow was bothering me, but now the pain's gone." And thusly did the Chinese stumble upon acupuncture.

A fluke you say. Hardly. You just know that in medieval times there were people who were tied to the rack and stretched and stretched until suddenly, their sciatica amazingly disappeared. That torturer was the first chiropractor.

You naysayers may say nay, but who knows, maybe water boarding will cure cancer and the hiccups or sleep deprivation might cure insomnia. Who's to say? Someday soon the way to spell relief may be C-I-A.