Life in America: Cows before people

By Bernhold Rankenburg

Recently, a video came across the Web, showing a cow laying down in a building. Someone was spraying it from a water hose. The caption said the cow was being “sprayed with cold water” to get it to walk to the slaughtering site.

I don’t know what the temperature of the water was, but this exploded into an example of mistreatment of farm animals. The sprayer lost his job.

The company CEO made a public apology. Worst of all, beef sales declined.

Schools across the nation took beef off of their lunch menus.

Obviously, we are very concerned about the comfort and well being of our farm animals. We are sensitive and caring people.

Meanwhile, for several years now we have seen this administration defending so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques as useful tools to get information from suspected terrorists. Enhanced Interrogation Techniques have been called torture by those who respect the Geneva Conventions. This administration has called that document, probably written by bleeding heart liberals, obsolete and inappropriate for the world we live in.

Vice President Dick Cheney recently spoke at a Conservative Political Action Conference. He contended that Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, including waterboarding, aren’t torture and we need enhanced techniques. He got a standing ovation. When Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., spoke to these compassionate conservatives, he was booed. McCain has spoken out forcefully against torture. He has his reasons, having spent time in a Vietnamese prison.

The current working definition of torture is any treatment that causes organ failure or death. What Enhanced Interrogation Techniques include, other than waterboarding, is classified information. There is always the danger that terrorists might train to withstand Enhanced Interrogation Techniques if they knew how we interrogated. The secrecy, maybe intentionally, leaves much to the imagination.

Waterboarding itself came to us from the Spanish Inquisition in the Middle Ages, a golden age of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. Those professionals also gave us thumbscrews. Who among us could not become brilliantly creative if a screw were slowly twisting into our thumb or finger? We also are indebted to the Middle Ages for the rack. This is a device on which a person is slowly bent backwards and stretched. It dislocates the joints, causing excruciating pain but the beautiful thing about it is that there is no organ failure or death.

Whether Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, even something as mild as waterboarding, are an acceptable way to treat human beings doesn’t seem to matter to the public. The debate is mostly legalistic and scholarly. One can only conclude that if you are a cow, on the way to becoming a double cheeseburger, your comfort and peace of mind is of national concern.

If you are a human being, however, especially a Muslim, and are suspected of evil, your comfort and peace of mind is of no concern to anyone. You will disappear down a black hole. Your future, if you have one, will rely on tedious discussions by legal scholars debating the significance of Habeas Corpus, Due Process, the Magna Carta and the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. For any human being anywhere, it’s best not to fall into the hands of King George and his loyal henchmen.

(Rankenburg lives in Napa.)

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