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I'd rather be killed than tortured. Think about it. (If you can . . . ) Imagine you're held in shackles in an uncomfortable position in a cold room all night long, aching beyond tears, shivering to the bone, scared out of your wits, with ear-splitting unfamiliar music pounding you, pissing and shitting on yourself, only to have somebody dressed in a hood kick you, burn you with cigarettes and insult you in the morning. No. Kill me first.

There's an episode of "Six Feet Under" that captures the feeling of total degradation that torture must induce. The only difference is that, at first the victim is a willing accomplice. And, of course, it is prettied up for TV.

Exercising empathy is really difficult. Denial is so much easier. You keep your so-called humanity intact. But sometimes I imagine what being tortured must feel like. They're torturing people with my tax dollars. Cruel and unusual, for sure. Innocent? Guilty? It does not matter.

This, by Dana Priest in the Washington Post, makes me cringe. Worse. It has kept me upset, unable to think, since I read it:

Members of the [U.S. CIA's] Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons . . .

Imagine.

Among those released from Guantanamo is Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian citizen, apprehended by a CIA team in Pakistan in October 2001, then sent to Egypt for interrogation, according to court papers. He has alleged that he was burned by cigarettes, given electric shocks and beaten by Egyptian captors. After six months, he was flown to Guantanamo Bay and let go earlier this year without being charged.

Imagine.

Masri [a CIA detainee later released as innocent] said his cell in Afghanistan was cold, dirty and in a cellar, with no light and one dirty cover for warmth. The first night he said he was kicked and beaten and warned by an interrogator: "You are here in a country where no one knows about you, in a country where there is no law. If you die, we will bury you, and no one will know."

Imagine.

My hat is off to Dana Priest and other courageous reporters working on this story. I will be uncomfortable with my country until it brings the criminals responsible for these acts to justice. All of them.

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