The Torturous Tale of LOST

The Torturous Tale of LOST

Last Wednesday's episode centered around Sayid, and how he became a torturer for the Republican Guard. Just in case we didn't get that point, the writers had Sayid announce, "My name is Sayid Jarrah, and I am a torturer."

As the flashbacks unfolded, it became apparent that the CIA taught Sayid to torture. Clancy Brown, of the late, lamented Carnivale, played the evil American government agent. He tricked Sayid into applying the screws to his commanding officer--although why the agent went through all that trouble was not made apparent.

Anyway, the questions about when and whom to torture were posed with a certain degree of artistic merit. Sayid's decision to torture the captive were not laid out in simple, black-and-white terms, the kind of terms you find in a lesser work, such as 2004's disgusting and depressing Man on Fire. It says a lot about our country today that torture is now the topic du jour. Whatever happened to all that "freedom" and "democracy" that Bush is always touting? Do "free" people torture?

The usual fallacy I hear from people who approve of Guantanamo is that "we have to torture those guys to protect ourselves." Then they pose the argument from fear that if a captured terrorist had information about an atomic bomb hidden in a US city, wouldn't we approve of torture to prevent the bomb's detonation? Worst cases make a bad argument. Evidence has surfaced that most of the captives at Guantanamo were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or--even worse--were brought to the prison based on the delirious testimony of those already out of their minds from torture.

The latest Abu Ghraib photos are even more disgusting than the earlier ones. Rumsfeld says this is old news and that the people responsible have already been punished. I say, the people responsitble--Bush, Rumsfeld, Chaney, Wolfowitz and Bolton--will never face punishment in this world. They have rigged the game so that only the low-born and petty dictators who have garnered their disfavor face the world's tribunals.