Mowing the Sward of Damocles (Fred Reed)

Fred Reed gives his always interesting take on the news (I have to give his article title props as one of the strangest I've ever seen...):

I’ve been reading the news again. It’s great fun, like watching an EEG trace as it…slowly…flat-lines. Reading a newspaper increasingly reminds me of watching a leper to see which finger falls off next. You can make bets.

In the news I find more on torture. I’m so proud. Home of the brave, land of the free, though we may pull your fingernails out. What nobody talks about is where we get our torturers. I mean, is it a rating, like Radioman First Class? Do recruiters offer it? What civilian applications do they see when an eager young Torquemada leaves the military? Local police?

The question of recruiting is fascinating. How much would you have to be paid to crush knees with a sledge hammer? Where do they find these guys? The boss at Langley presumably doesn’t just walk through the office saying, “Hey, we need someone TDY for Guantanamo to crush genitals. Sally, you up for it? Bill? You get overseas pay and it looks good on your rseume.”

Or does he? The military didn’t have any trouble getting those girl soldiers at Abu Ghreib into it. Ooooh! King-ky!

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