...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? 

 

Ó05 Jack Hubbell