The Water Board Jungle

By Franklin Alfred Kirby Edwards

Torture isn’t meant to be funny nor politically correct. But if there is a smidgeon of humor in it, satirist and political essayist Franklin Alfred Kirby Edwards will find it, and has. In this “narrative essay” the author deals with the dark subject of CIA torture of terrorist suspects in the years following the even darker and deadly September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. He brings lavish facts and insight as well as logical breadth and refreshing opinion to the task, all ladled with pinches of needle-sharp satire and literary wit. And readers take off your blinders because The Water Board Jungle (38,000 words) isn’t a near-sighted political tract. It’s more, much, much more. Its often laconic commentary tells the story of what America has become post-9-11, and acts as a sobering slap in the face, and shouts “Snap out of it!”

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.D. Byron-Smith
• Release date: Feb 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310532023

Franklin Alfred Kirby Edwards

Mr. Franklin Alfred Kirby Edwards is a political essayist and satirist who lives with his pet alpaca "Mukie" on a small, rural farm in the Western United States. He was educated at several American universities. He says his hobbies include reading spy thrillers, speaking Latin with friends over a glass of iced chardonnay and playing pickle ball. He likes loud music with three chords.

Book preview

The Water

Board Jungle

Franklin Alfred

Kirby Edwards

Published at Smashwords

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Snap Out of It

Chapter One:

Let’s Get Something Straight

Chapter Two:

Colors of Torture

Chapter Three:

Silver Bullet & Kleenex As Needed

Chapter Four:

The Manchester Document

Chapter Five:

You Call That Torture

Chapter Six:

Hordes of Water Boards

Chapter Seven:

Them Who Can’t Talk

Chapter Eight:

Torture: To Be or Not To Be

Chapter Nine:

Spy On Me, Will You?

Chapter Ten:

Need for Speed

Chapter Eleven:

Full Disclosure

Chapter Twelve:

Train Wreck’s A Coming

Chapter Thirteen:

Boarding The Torture Train

Chapter Fourteen:

Torture, Inc.

Chapter Fifteen:

Wowie, Wowie, Wowie

Chapter Sixteen:

Torturing Footnotes

Chapter Seventeen:

I Before E Except After C

Chapter Eighteen:

The Nitty-Gritty

Chapter Nineteen:

Cold Desert Nights

Chapter Twenty:

Clearly A Broken Man

Chapter Twenty-One:

Payback for USS Cole

Chapter Twenty-Two:

Counting Money to Counting Bodies

Chapter Twenty-Three:

Torture’s Coup de Grace

Chapter Twenty-Four:

The Big Lie

Epilogue:

Time to Act

Afterword 2019

Introduction:

Snap Out of It

Lest we forget!

On the morning of September 11, 2001, four airliners flying over the United States were hijacked by 19 al Qaeda terrorists. The flights carrying men, woman and children were American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93.

At 8:46 a.m., American’s Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, resulting in the collapse of the tower at 10:25 a.m. At 9:03 a.m., United’s Flight 175 slammed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, burning and collapsing it at 9:55 a.m. At 9:37 a.m. American’s Flight 77 crashed into the southwest side of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. At 10:03 a.m. United’s Flight 93 crashed in Stoney Creek Township, Pennsylvania, after passengers heroically mutinied against the hijackers and the Boeing 757 went down.

By the time the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, Americans mourned the murders of 2,972 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania – the equivalent of 30 deaths a minute – and a sleeping giant awoke to worldwide terrorism within its two-ocean shores.

America declared the War Against Terror and in its February 2003 publication, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, our government outlined how it planned to fight it. Ours is a strategy of direct and continuous action against terrorist groups, the cumulative effect of which will initially disrupt, over time degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist organizations. The more frequently and relentlessly we strike the terrorists across all fronts, using all the tools of statecraft, the more effective we will be. . . . By striking constantly and ensuring that terrorists have no place to hide, we will compress their scope and reduce the capability of these organizations. The document warns that while the government will strive to build international partnerships to combat terrorism, We will not hesitate to act alone, to exercise our right to self-defense, including acting pre-emptively against terrorists to prevent them from doing harm to our people and our country.

It was clear what the American people wanted, and it was articulated by President George W. Bush on June 1, 2002: We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act.

In the popular vernacular in the years since the sentiment of the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism has been boiled down to a few words: Fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence called it one of the lowest points in our nation’s history. Is she talking about the cowardly 9-11 attacks by al Qaeda, in which people jumped from the upper floors of the Twin Towers, choosing to die by hitting the pavement hundreds of feet below rather than burning to death? No. The intrepid California Democrat is talking about the CIA’s naughty detention and interrogation program that operated for five years after September 11, 2001, details of which were vividly revealed to the world on December 9, 2014, when Feinstein’s Select Committee, of which she chaired, released its Executive Summary of its secret report on the program – all 240,000 words of it. Or should I say inked-out words of it because the report was heavily redacted as the government puts it, or, as the rest of us talk, censored for national security reasons. Although in reading the 499-page summary it is easy for even a non-jaundice eye to assume information was blacked out by intelligence interests simply to save some government official’s ass. Nonetheless, what’s left is so graphic it might cause sensitive people to lose their lunch. Here’s a taste of what I mean.

It is a description of a terrorist being water boarded by the CIA: He did vomit a couple of times during the water board with some beans and rice. It’s been 10 hours since he ate so this is surprising and disturbing. We plan to only feed him Ensure for a while now.

And how did the interrogated terrorist fare? He cried, begged, pleaded and whimpered and because of the water they literally poured down his throat, he jittered with involuntary leg, chest and arm spasms.

Reaction to details of the report was swift. Progressives and liberals in the United States and across the world immediately branded the interrogation methods used by the Central Intelligence Agency as torture. Conservatives, on the other hand, said the treatment was harsh but necessary to learn of additional terrorist attacks planned following 9-11, and which officials believed were in fact imminent.

What follows is a long essay on what is politely called the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques program, mostly as it is outlined in the report put together by Senator Feinstein’s committee, but also by scores of other sources. It provides background on the CIA’s torturing of terrorists in the years immediately following the horrendous September 11 attacks, presents lavish details of numerous interrogations using these controversial enhanced methods, talks about the program’s effectiveness – which is at the crux of an ongoing national debate – and brings it all together for readers in an essay of insightful commentary with both logical breadth and refreshing opinion, and attempts to ladle it with pinches of satire and spoonfuls of literary wit. But, The Water Board Jungle is even more: it tells the story of what America has become post-9-11, and acts as a sobering slap in the face, and shouts Snap out of it!

The author would be remiss in failing to mention another bright red topic of this essay: greed. That’s because the Senate Select Committee’s report also tells the story of two obscure American psychologists who didn’t know diddly-squat about interrogating terrorists but managed to manipulate the sophisticated CIA spooks like Silly Putty, essentially turning what has been called torture into personal riches in the millions.

Yes, my dears, torture pays.

A note to readers: My editors tell me that an essay of more than 38,000 words is excruciatingly long. Well, for your information, it will take you less time to read this essay than it took the CIA to water board some terrorists.

Chapter One:

Let’s Get Something Straight

Here is where I stand, right off.

Okay. So you agree with many who say the CIA’s interrogation methods such as waterboarding were torture, and shouldn’t have been done. What’s more you believe that torturing terrorists should never be done under any circumstances.

All right. Let’s apply that standard to what happened in Pakistan only days after the Senate released the CIA report.

Nine Taliban terrorists stormed a school and murdered 132 uniformed schoolchildren.

So tell me, say, by chance they had caught one of these seven gunmen before the school attack. You’re telling me that you absolutely would not have used any means possible, even torturing the captured terrorist in an attempt to force him to reveal which school was going to be attacked.

You still say no?

But it might have prevented the carnage and the murders of all those children.

One hundred and thirty two of the little darlings died.

Your answer is still no?

All right, I want to introduce you to the mother of one of those dead kids because I want you to explain your tortured logic to her.

Oh, you’d rather not?

Hypothetically let’s raise the stakes substantially.

Two al Qaeda terrorists have just planted a dirty bomb in a large U.S. city, and, an hour before it is set to explode killing thousands and contaminating sections of the city for several lifetimes, one of the terrorists is apprehended by police.

Would you beat the location of the bomb out of him?

No.

You still say no?

Let’s remove the question from the abstract. I forgot to tell you, your grandmother is babysitting your three children two blocks from where the terrorists hid the bomb in a brownstone.

Would you torture him to save grandma and your kids?

You seem alarmed, confused.

. . . I’m waiting. The bomb’s ticking.

Well? Do I have to water board you to get your answer?

Chapter Two:

Colors of Torture

Hypocrisy is a growth industry in Washington, D.C. As early as 2002 members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, were provided graphic and detailed updates on the CIA’s interrogation efforts, including their use of waterboarding.

Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing, Porter Goss, former House intelligence chairman and CIA director, 2004-06, told The Washington Post. And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.

Today these same liberal weenies who encouraged what they’re now calling torture, are crying foul.

The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism makes it clear that the war on terror cannot be won without the full support of us all. And as always, we will rely on the strength of the American people to remain resolute in the face of adversity, it states.

I got news for you. With release of the CIA report, Senator Feinstein and her pretty friends have violated the pledge to remain resolute in the War Against Terror.

The whole CIA thing began in the frightening and chaotic days after 9-11 when President George W. Bush declared the War on Terror, ordering government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency to round up and detain the al Qaeda, Muslim extremists responsible for the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history.

Spooks at the CIA reacted with the gusto you’d expect.

Over the course of the program 119 terrorists were caught and imprisoned at secret CIA detention sites located outside the United States. In all, 39 terrorists were subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. While the Senate Select Committee’s report identifies a handful of these sites, and not by name but rather by colors – calling them such code names as Brown, Orange, Green and my favorite, Cobalt," a chemical with blue pigments – The Washington Post broke the code and reports sites were in at least Afghanistan, which had four, and in Poland, Thailand, Lithuania and Romania.

Some countries that cooperated with the U.S. spy agency have since paid what might be called reparations to families of terrorists who were subjected to harsh interrogations at CIA sites in their countries. Poland, for instance, was ordered to pay relatives of a terrorist prisoner $80,000 in damages by an international court.

Additionally the Senate report