Torture U.S.A.!

Dear Mr. President:

Wow, I've never written a letter to the president before! Not to Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, or even Nixon, who I thought could have avoided that whole impeachment thing if he'd just gotten a dye job. Congressmen prefer blondes!

Ha, ha, just kidding. Seriously, Mr. President, I usually don't write letters to politicians, and I usually waste my time pretending to write fiction and, in my blog, writing about pretending to write fiction.

But when I saw you on television, saying that we needed "alternative means" of interrogating terrorists, I just had to send you a note. Of course you were right that we need torture to fight terrorists, just like you've been correct about everything else in this war!

You were really mad at those senators who oppose your plan, even though they're Repubs and they served in the military. They seem to think that torturing people is inhumane, violates international law, and puts our soldiers at risk. They trotted out some legal mumbo-jumbo about how confessions and evidence gotten through torture shouldn't be introduced in court. Then they said something about hurting innocent people (what's a few thousand ruined innocent lives in a war?).

Hey, just because John McCain was being tortured in Vietnam while you were doing bong hits in the National Guard doesn't make him right and you wrong!


Dick hearts

But I've got an idea. If we need to do stuff like "waterboard" prisoners at Guantanamo and send them off to police state nations where they get wires attached to their sacs, we really need to think about bringing those torture jobs back to the good old U.S.A. instead of having Syrians and Marines in Cuba do the work.

We don't need to outsource torture! Think of all the jobs you could generate by setting up Torture U.S.A.! centers across the country! Millions of underpaid, underworked Americans can quit their boring jobs and live out their dreams as federal employees! And the franchising rights would generate billions in dollars to pay for more tax cuts for the needy rich.

Now, I know what you're thinking. All those liberal types worried about "civil rites" will say, "As much as I like to spend taxpayers' money, there's not enough Arabs to torture. Even if you wanted, you couldn't fill up Torture U.S.A.! centers to make them work."

Here's where my plan really shines. It's a truism that that everybody has a secret. Nobody really knows if that secret is important or not to fight Osama. But those are the types of secrets -- like where I really go out when I tell Wife I'm getting some milk and I return three days later with lipstick on my collar, smelling like cheap perfume -- that people are only going to reveal under extreme durress.

So, doesn't it make sense that every American man, woman, and child should get tortured? Torture U.S.A.! centers can get this information out of them, even when they don't realize they have it! Every patriotic American will line up to have their fingernails torn off and their heads dunked in water to help fight the evildoers!

If someone doesn't ask to be tortured, they obviously have something to hide. And you can only get that out of them through torturing them!

I know what your critics say: that you are power-mad, that you are using the "war on terror" to gain unchecked power, and that if you and your team weren't a bunch of incompetent bozos, you wouldn't need to resort to torture, eavesdropping on Americans, or denying the right of the accused to see evidence against them.

Pretend to listen and ignore them, just like you've always done!

Think about it! You could torture all of your tormentors in Congress, Michael Moore, and that band that does the "My Humps" song. Not to mention someone dressed up like Kim Jong Il.


We don't, but he does

Also, I heard that the vice president gets turned on by torture, so you would giving the old man some serious boners -- without Viagra! That should help cut the Medicare deficit!

I know my plan is so great, that you, Dick, and Rummy will want to be the first to be tortured! You will spill any secrets that imperil national security. There's no reason why you shouldn't volunteer.

After all, what do you have to hide?

Yours,

Bookfraud