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Thursday, May 13, 2004

The Logic of Torture In Iraq:

Q: (sighing) Now, what about this picture?
Taibbi: (nostalgic) Oh, that. There we're sodomizing the prisoner with a chemical lighting unit.
Q: Why?
Taibbi: Why? What do you mean, why?
Q: We mean, why?
Taibbi: Look, it's the same thing I told Le Monde. What would you do in that situation? Seven-thousand miles from home, all these guys behind bars?shit, when are you ever going to get a chance again to sodomize a guy with a chemical lighting unit? I mean, I'm 34 years old already. Carpe diem, dude!
Q: What do you mean, it's the same thing you told Le Monde?
Taibbi: Just now. When you guys gave me my phone call.
Q: You called Le Monde?
Taibbi: I was going to call my mother, but then I thought to myself, hell, I can talk to my mother later! Then I thought about calling a lawyer, but I ended up ditching that idea, too. So I called Le Monde.
Q: Jesus! What did you tell them?
Taibbi: Oh, all kinds of stuff. They were like, 'Are those photos for real?' And I was like, shit, that wasn't the half of it! We did stuff that would have broken the camera if you tried to take a picture of it. It was fucking sweet! I told them this one story about a guy, just an ordinary guy, he was actually one of the quieter ones?anyway, we took him and shoved his head completely up a horse's ass. Just to see if it would fit! You'd be amazed, but it did.
Q: Um?
Taibbi: And then they were like, did you do this on your own, or was there clearance from a superior? And I was like, a superior? Hell, we had carte blanche from the president himself! A written presidential order!
Q: Wait? Is that true?

[The Abu Ghraib days were the best of my life--By Matt Taibbi.]