Golden-Rule Debasers

Enhanced interrogation skills,
(Translation: torture) give me chills
If practiced by the other side
Specifically as we’ve applied.

A GI in Afghanistan,
Is captured, says the Taliban.
He’s missing, thus it’s likely so.
What might we see on video?

His lying on a water board
His face enwrapped while water’s poured,
His gag reflex in overdrive
His terror that he won’t survive?

Or standing forty hours chained
Until intelligence is gained?
Or in the nude in chilly cells,
Cold water thrown and feigned farewells?

And in the end a gullet slit
For YouTube viewers’ benefit?
For architects of our techniques,
I wonder if the horror wreaks
The havoc of a wakeful night
A ringing telephone’s affright.
Or like they might have said, Hot damn,
I’ve managed to steer clear of ‘Nam!


 Five times deferred and finally
Of service obligations free,
Dick Cheney said, during the ’60s,
He favored other priorities.

His White House devotee George Bush,
As Guardsman favored going whoosh
Safe over Texas in his plane.
Reservists could from war abstain.

So Dick and Doubl’ya, sleep tight.
It’s not your children in the fight.