Our Extraordinary Rendition
He wore women’s underwear on his head.
No…
No. Perhaps I should qualify that statement.
He was made to wear
women’s underwear on his head.
No. Again,
I don’t think I’m giving you the full picture.
You see,
this isn’t a fraternity prank we are talking about here.
When you are performing a little college hazing,
you don’t have the
International Red Cross step in to critique your method.

Ah well. Boys will be boys.
Let them have their fun.
Hey, but girls wanna’ have fun too, right?
Nothing like having a girl dip her fingers
in something crimson and then
walk over and touch a guy.
Yes. Girls will be girls.

But again.
I don’t think you understand the situation just yet.
That man wearing the panties… ?
That man with the smear of red across his face… ?
He isn’t smiling.
And just when does erotic contact
equate to existential torture, hum?

This may not be America,
but it is us as Americans.
Ah yes.
America.
And you’d like to utter that with a
swelling of pride in your chest.
We are what the rest of the world aspires to.
We are the epitome of justice.
Liberty. Freedom.
Freedom. Liberty.
Somebody’s mantra.



And what was it
the Commander of Quantanamo,
Major General
Geoffrey Miller said?
“You have to have full control.
No mistake about who’s in charge.
You have to treat these detainees
like dogs.”
Just before he made these remarks,
a man in Kabul was stripped naked,
chained in a cell,
and left to freeze to death.
Just after these remarks,
a man in Abu Ghraib is shackled
with his arms at such an
extreme angle behind his back
that his ribs fracture from the stress
and he drowns from the
flooding of his own inner bodily fluids.
Oh well. Boys will be boys.

Anybody know someone
who died on Nine Eleven?
If you or that person had a chance
to pull on those shackles,
distort those arms in their sockets,
fracture those ribs
and cause those lungs
to fill with fluid,
would you?

At what degree of separation
from the actual act of terrorism
does this man you hate have to be
before he no longer qualifies for pain?
And how much pain
can you inflict
before you
no longer qualify
to be American?
How about a show of hands.
Who here will raise their arm
for a chance to raise his?

©05 Jack Hubbell