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Rohrabacher: Frat Parties Aren't Torture
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine was on Capitol Hill this morning to testify to the House Subcommittee on International Relations, Human Rights and Oversight, about his report on the FBI's role in detainee interrogations, released two weeks ago.
While some saw the hearing as a long-awaited chance for a serious examination of the torture techniques at Guantanamo Bay, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, took an almost frat-boy glee in the torture details. In a statement of just 13 minutes, Rohrabacher managed to use the phrase "panties on [someone's] head" eight times.
But perhaps more significantly, he managed to work it into a comical (if this wasn't so serious) jab at Inspector General Fine:
ROHRABACHER: Let me -- I don't know what's -- I have never interrogated someone, either a criminal, which the FBI has to deal with, with the criminals, domestically, nor have I interrogated someone who's a foreign enemy, unless, of course, we include the people who have sat on this side...FINE: I'll tell you what -- I was going to add that one.
(LAUGHTER)
ROHRABACHER: I won't ask you to wear anything on your head.
(LAUGHTER)
So I don't know what is -- what is effective and what's not. I do see here things that seem to be fraternity boy pranks and hazing pranks that I do not -- they might be unacceptable, but they certainly don't fit into the category of torture, which is the word that's been bandied around here.
More hazing after the jump.
From the transcript, emphasis ours:
And here's a guy who had participated in the conspiracy and now we have him under -- and now we have him in custody, and you're suggesting that the behavior of, what, panties on his head in order to try to, you know, confuse him and to pressure him, that is unacceptable interrogation technique for a man who was involved in a conspiracy to kill tens of thousands of Americans?
and again. . .
Let's go through some of those other abusive things, then. Panties on the head. What are some of the others?
and again. . .
I mean, this wasn't -- we're not even talking about really -- well, maybe this would be -- maybe putting panties on somebody's head would be considered torture by someone.
and again. . .
I will have to tell you, when most people hear the word "torture," which has been bandied around here, I don't believe that they think of it as holding a growling dog near somebody but not the growling dog -- you know, it's one thing to have the growling dog eating someone's leg or arm versus -- which is absolute torture. It's another thing to have a growling dog around, or putting panties on someone's head, or discussing -- telling him he had repressed homosexual tendencies in his presence.
and again. . .
OK. So when we're talking about this position that the FBI, this moral stand that the FBI took on this, it was basically to say that a man who might have information that could lead us to prevent an attack that would cost the lives of tens of thousands of Americans, that we should not -- we should never think that it was acceptable to put panties on his head or try to humiliate him verbally in order to break his will? That's not an acceptable interrogation even if it's going to save the lives of all these other people in the end?
and again. . .
I would suggest that there's a difference between torture and putting panties on people's heads and saying that they're -- and trying to humiliate them and make them disoriented so they might give information.
and again. . .
Except -- except when it came down to putting panties on the head of some guy who was actually engaged in the conspiracy to kill all these Americans, the FBI again decided that they were holier than thou...
and again. . .
And I don't know if the public would agree that torture would be any or even a few of the items used against this man who was a conspirator in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, whether or not these were actually, by ordinary people's definition of torture, whether or not actually stripping him naked or making him wear women's underwear on his head and things like that, whether or not -- most people, when they think of torture are thinking in terms of cutting somebody's finger off or putting them through great physical pain rather than just great psychological, let's say, pressure, rather than physical pain.
and finally. . .
Well, with that said, let me note that I am happy to send that letter with you. But I in no way will ever apologize that someone put panties on the head of this 9/11 terrorist and treated him without respect. That man should have no respect.
Josh
Zachary
Paging Dr. Freud
June 4, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
EVERY denial of human dignity is two way, both the object of the denial and the agent of denial lose their dignity.
June 4, 2008 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone's obsessed with women's unmentionables.
June 4, 2008 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The GOP isn't a stranger to frat parties.
Remember when ol' drunken former NY Congressman John Sweeney turned up at one?
Here's a Muckraker golden oldie:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/000492.php
Of course Sweeney went on to be charged with a DWI, hitting his wife and evading taxi fare.
I wonder if Gitmo detainess would rather be at the Alpha Kappa Phi party rather than in Cuba?
June 4, 2008 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I had thought Rohrabacher was an idiot; what more proof is needed! And he'll probably be reelected :-\
June 4, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
**Holy crap! Dana wears panties on his head when he goes surfing. Ain't torture. He gets wet too. Ain't torture.
June 4, 2008 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
TMI, Dana.
June 4, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ha-ha. It's so funny.
Panties on the head, on a muslim, is no big deal, particularly when they are those of a menstruating woman. Is this the 21st Century, or what? They should get with it - what Amnesty and the Geneva Convention call torture is just a Friday night frat party at Yale. Toughen up, will you?
June 4, 2008 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
'sfunny, most of the people in Guantanamo were picked up on dubious grounds for being in the wrong place at the wrong time in Afghanistan, and 'looking' like a terrorist.
Oh, lookee here!
June 4, 2008 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
All you human rights pansies need to get over this 'fraternity boy prank' nonsense. Please. I was in the same frat with Dana Rohrabacher in college, and let me tell you some of my fondest memories from university involve me and Dana "sparky" Rohbrabacher sending an electric current through young pledges supple testicles just like they do in Guantanamo. Once a Pi Zappa Testi, always a Pi Zappa Testi!
June 4, 2008 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
**Meh! I knew he was into Greek.
June 4, 2008 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is especially interesting in view of Scott McClellan's new book, in which he argues that the 'hazing' culture of college fraternities has infected DC politics where 'anything goes' as long as it's in the interest of 'a win'.
Really interesting to see this news item, after reading the opening chapters of McClellan's book. Same stupidity on the national stage these guys should have outgrown by 22 at the latest.
Wow.
Just... wow.
June 4, 2008 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
And this clown just won his primary election yesterday to be returned to Congress this fall.
Please send $$$ to the Democrat that is trying to unseat him, Debbie Cook, current mayor of Huntington Beach, aka 'Surf City USA'.
We've gotta get rid of this guy, starting with a nice little YouTube vid: 'Dana, what did you do in your mommy's room?' 'Panties on the head.' And why did you get sent to the principal's office? And what did you do on your first date? And what did they do to you in the locker room in high school? And what do you wear at the special gym for Congressmen?
Oh, the fun we can have...
June 4, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone should have forced Rohrabacher to wear a pair of soiled, filthy dirty panties on his head while while asking his questions. Maybe that would have given him a sense of how humiliating it feels.
June 4, 2008 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
President George W. Bush once led a Yale fraternity that barbarically branded its new members on their backsides with a red-hot metal rod as part of a sadistic hazing practice.
“When they burned me,” Levy remembers, “I jumped a mile.”
“I got branded and I didn’t like it one bit,” Professor Bradford Lee of the elite Naval War College in Newport, R.I.-an ex-football player and onetime member of Bush’s Delta Epsilon Kappa fraternity-said.
“It did burn,” he says, recalling the terrifying experience. “I think I still have the mark on me.”
Bush, the oldest son of former President George Bush, is now the runaway front-runner for the Republican nomination for president. His campaign stresses responsible individual behavior, family values and compassion for one’s fellow citizens.
But a STAR investigation has revealed that he was president of Delta Epsilon Kappa when the hazing scandal broke in the campus newspaper in the late ’60s-leading to the fraternity being fined and the branding practice halted.
Amazingly, Bush, now the governor of Texas, defended the illegal torture of the young fraternity pledges at the time as a harmless prank-insisting that it was comparable to “only a cigarette burn” which left “no scarring mark physically or mentally.”
But others said the branding resulted in a second-degree burn that left a half-inch scab in the shape of the Greek letter Delta.
June 4, 2008 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
When do Dana and his ass-clown pal Darryl "the dimwit" Issa get together and waterboard each other until water comes out all their holes? Hopefully soon...in public so we can all laugh AGAIN at them.
I continues to astound how stupid these fools are....
June 4, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Response from Rohrabacher's opponent this fall, Mayor Debbie Cook of Huntington Beach, from Debbie's communications team.
"At a time when we need a serious discussion and thorough review of the allegations of torture coming out of Guantanamo Bay, Congressman Rohrabacher has used his position of trust to make jokes and liken the interrogations to nothing more than a frat party.
We need a representative in Congress who will approach the serious issues facing our country with decorum and common sense, instead of cracking jokes. Torture is not to be taken lightly especially when the prestige and moral authority of the United States government is at stake.
The voters of the 46th district deserve a Member of Congress who works hard, has a good grasp of the issues before them and who is taken seriously by their colleagues. That's how you get things done in Congress."
Debbie Cook is the mayor of Huntington Beach and Democratic Nominee for the 46th Congressional District.
Cook is a two-term member of the Huntington Beach City Council, currently serving as mayor. She has devoted much of her adult life and her legal career to environmental protection and energy policy. She considers reducing America’s dependence on fossil fuels an environmental and national security imperative.
The 46th Congressional District covers a two-county area stretching from Costa Mesa on the south to Palos Verdes Peninsula on the north.
www.debbiecookforcongress.com
Here's the special Act Blue Link to tell Dana that torture's no joke
June 4, 2008 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is another tidbit confirming what I've felt for some time. Conservatives are not so much about achieving goals or producing tangible results as about feeling smug and righteous.
Humiliation is the end in itself for this crew, and who cares what effect it has on the troops, the mission, or the broader strategic objectives.
June 4, 2008 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, Dana, that pesky international community doesn't quite agree with you about what constitutes torture.
I guess if the interrogators followed all this up with beers and foosball, then we could all see it as good-natured hazing. But they don't.
And while some of the people being interrogated may well be "some guy who was actually engaged in the conspiracy to kill all these Americans," I think the paucity of actual trials demonstrates that most are not.
Now, as to the kind of person you are, well, I'll leave that to those better qualified than I to make that determination.
June 4, 2008 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
This @&$&$^#^ is my congressman and I'm livid about it -unfortunately because I live in the small tip of Long Beach that borders "the Orange Curtain" (Orange County [the OC] is notoriously right-wing for those who don't know) and due to gerrymandering bu the CA GOP there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Help I'm stuck in Rohrbasshole land!!!
June 5, 2008 12:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rohrabacher is doable. As in defeatable. His seat is a PVI of R+6, which is well within the range of what Democrats have been knocking off lately; definitely an easier target than the Louisiana or Mississippi specials, and probably even a slightly softer target than Denny Hastert's old seat in Illinois.
June 5, 2008 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
ummm... Rohrbacher almost said something intelligent. But he missed the mark. Even his attempt at a serious close is wrong.
Regardless of whether Rohrbacher says they should have no respect, they should, and do, have rights. One of those rights is to not be tortured. Period.
For Rohrbacher to belittle that torture as just a fraternity prank is to endorse the torture.
Why do Republicans like torture?
Are they evil or stupid?
June 5, 2008 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I vote for both evil and stupid. There's lots of evidence.......
June 5, 2008 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if rohrbacker understands that hazeing is illegal and can strip a fraternity or sorority of its parent affiliation ah but that shouldnt worry ppl like him its not illegal unless it happens to them or theirs
June 5, 2008 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is demeaning to a guy named THOMAS S. BEAN who was tortured in his own home after contacting Senator Grassley with a ten page memo outling FBI and NSA felony crimes.
This is demeaning and outrageous to a guy who saw his friend, DR. MARK GORDON, get destroyed by cowardly scumbag faggot slime known as SIOUX FALLS SOUTH DAKOTA FBI RSSA DAVE "fuckface" HELLER, SF FBI SA DANNY "shithead" REYNALDS and former SD US ATTY JAMES "shit or get off the pot" MCMAHON (all fired after I started contacting DOJ OIG).
The Dems are so stupid, and weak, and incompetent...they are afraid to contact me, or subpoena me to testify truthfully followed by a polygraph that would cost Conyers of Leahy about 85$?
If I'm lying...under oath...then I'm dying in fed district court after being indicted for perjury and obstructing congress..........no?
June 5, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
For those interested, a postmodern, non-topical analysis of this and other current Muckraker articles can be found here. Consider yourselves warned.
June 6, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink