This afternoon I had an MRI done on my left shoulder. For those who’ve never had an MRI, what happens is you lay flat on a table and they roll the table into a narrow cylindrical space. You have to lay extremely still, in my case for about 12 minutes, followed by a second test of about eight minutes. At first, staring at the top of the cylinder with essentially no means of escape, I felt something close to panic. But I closed my eyes and remained calm, knowing that the technicians had my safety utmost in mind.
I couldn’t help but imagine, though: What if these people meant me harm? What if they intended to torture me? Take your ordinary stress and fear in a medical situation, multiply it by a factor of thousands and just imagine what victims of torture, now and in the past, have had to endure. And for those of you who dismiss this as mere sympathy for terrorists, bear in mind that many torture victims have been innocent, even in the eyes of their captors.
Andrew Sullivan reports on a public exchange between Donald Rumsfeld and General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Pace said, “It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it.” Rumsfeld countered: “But I don’t think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it’s to report it.” Pace corrected him: “If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it.”
As Sullivan says, the fish rots from the head down.
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