Bowe Bergdahl, the Army soldier who was held in Taliban captivity for five years, was recently traded by the Obama administration for five high-operative Taliban leaders we had in custody. We can argue whether the Obama administration acted legally or not, but I’m curious as to the language the Left is using in this controversy.
According to those on the Left, the twenty-eight year old “child” Bowe Bergdahl, was tortured.Hmmm . . . I’m moved to wonder just what they mean by “tortured.” Given that Barack Obama referred to a man approaching thirty who holds the rank of sergeant in the military as a “kid,” I’d say we might want to be a bit wary about what the Democrats consider ‘torture.’
Keeping in mind that the Taliban is a ruthless and barbaric terrorist organization with medieval, Nazi-like cruelties under their belt, let’s take a look at just how these sadistic animals typically mete out punishment to their prisoners. Then we can better assess whether what Bergdahl suffered rises to the level of true ‘torture’ or not.
Former Taliban soldier, Hafiz Sadiqulla Hassani, who spent time as a bodyguard for Mullah Omar, the reclusive spiritual leader of the Taliban, said,
“. . . we would beat them with staves soaked in water – like a knife cutting through meat – until the room ran with their blood or their spines snapped. Then we would leave them with no food or water in rooms filled with insects until they died.”
He also said of one particular victim the Taliban ‘tortured’ that he was,
“. . . beaten so much, such a pulp of skin and blood, that it was impossible to tell whether he had clothes on or not.
Every time he fell unconscious, we rubbed salt into his wounds to make him scream.”
And that,
“The soldiers were given blank marriage certificates signed by a mullah and were encouraged to “take wives” during battle, basically a licence to rape.”
Bergdahl was “caged.”
Now don’t get me wrong, I think being caged is a bad thing. I, myself, have been caged and I didn’t like it one bit. Years ago, when I was living in southern California I’d let some traffic tickets go to warrant and was thrown into the county jail. It was not fun. My cell was most likely much bigger than the one Bergdahl was put in, but I think inflicting discomfort on prisoners via incarceration falls way short of, say, slowly slicing someone’s head off with a butcher knife. Or Using blowtorches and power drills on flesh and bone, or gouging out eyes and chopping off hands, all a popular practice of the Taliban.
So when we throw around the word “torture” I think it best to reign in our verbiage, restricting ourselves to the appropriate nomenclature.
Now, I’m not saying that Bergdahl was treated kindly by his captors. In one video I saw of Bergdahl sitting in a truck casually talking to one of his captors, it looked like someone being questioned by a patrolman for running a stop sign. But, giving him the benefit of the doubt, let’s go ahead and say he was not well cared-for.
But when we say “tortured,” let us be intellectually honest with ourselves and true to the lexical meaning of the word. Case in point, another incident that the democrats termed as “torture” in that infamous scandal by our own military at Gitmo several years ago. There, our military guards made enemy combatants put women’s underwear on their heads. They also were made to strip and climb on top of each other forming a cheerleader type pyramid. Not to be insensitive, but panties for hats and naked gymnastics are a far cry from live decapitation and body part removal.
Likewise with being put in a cage.
So when Liberals like Fox News contributor, Juan Williams says, “America should be loving this child,” or when the President identifies an Army non-commisioned officer old enough to have a teenaged son as a “kid”, let us keep in mind that it is the Leftist way to use con-artist tactics when it serves a political purpose. The vast majority of Americans would not refer to a 28 year old sergeant in the military as a “child”, nor would they consider jail and darkness to be “torture.”
There are those who even employ those last two in their fantasy role-play bedroom games.
I guess to Democrats, one man’s torture is another man’s fetish.