Panties on the Head! The Horror!

The front and center presence on Wednesday night of Rep. Maxine Waters at the congressional state funeral of President Ronald Reagan irked a number of Republicans and even some conservative Democrats. But given that the California delegation was put forward for protocol reasons, it was unavoidable.

According to a House Democratic leadership aide, Waters, whose utter contempt for Reagan is legendary, was asked to contain herself before, during, and after the solemn events in the rotunda. "The fact that we had to remind some members about their behavior given the national TV audience is embarrassing enough," says the leadership staffer. "All we needed were Waters and [Pete] Stark acting up or making some kind of scene or mugging for the camera."

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's recent testimony that President Bush had "made no direct order" authorizing any of the practices photographed at Abu Ghraib prison was calculated to cloak the president with deniability. But it raises the real question: What constitutes the kind of "torture" that, according to Ashcroft, "this administration opposes"? And what exactly are the information-gathering techniques that the Bush administration does approve of? We don't know because it refuses to be specific, opting instead for the wink-and-nod approach — publicly condemning torture in a general sort of way while discreetly demanding results by whatever means it takes.

Broad generalizations like "this administration opposes torture" have not worked and will not work in the future.

The U.S. backed Arab-language news network Al Hurra broadcast video on Wednesday depicting grisly acts of torture on Iraqi citizens ordered by Saddam Hussein. But so far at least, the shocking new video remains embargoed by U.S. media outlets.

"But that's better than the humiliation of being stripped naked," he said. "Shoot me here," he added, pointing between his eyes, "but don't do this to us."

We have made one contribution to the noble art of torture which the future historian must inevitably note with care and admiration. I give you, gentlemen, the Third Degree.

Would you like to get kicked in the groin? Have you an overpowering desire to be questioned, without having food, water or sleep, by relays of detectives for ninety-two hours on end? Would you like to be blinded by being forced to stare into a terrifically high powered light for hours on end? Have you a desire to be put in a dentist's chair and held there while the dentist grinds down a good molar with a rough burr? Or would you prefer to have your Adam's apple pounded by a blackjack until blood spurted from your mouth?

All the little pleasantries I've enumerated can probably be had at your nearest police station, provided you are suspected of a major crime and are reluctant to confess your guilt. If the crime is major enough you may be provided with even more varied entertainment.

"Taps" is a form of indoor sports particularly popular with the boys in the back room of the police station. In playing "Taps" the prisoner is first strapped to a chair. After he has been made comfortable he is pounded on the side of the head with a piece of rubber hose, or "goldfish." He must not be knocked unconscious but must be struck hard enough to experience jolting pain. If the game is to be played expertly the blows must be delivered with machine-like regularity.

Timing, as in tennis and other games, is essential and the perfect stroke is one delivered at regular thirty second intervals. The one drawback to the game is its lack of variety. The prisoner in the chair is always "It." To compensate for this "Taps" has a distinct advantage over most station house games; the rubber hose causes no scar and the red welt it raises won't be visible on the witness stand the next morning. The joke of this is that the prisoner's head will be damned sensitive for weeks or even months.

Kicking a suspect in the abdomen, bouncing his head off a cement floor, the dental burr and Adam's apple treatments, baseball bats, pool cues, burning with cigarette ends and other divertissements all have their loyal adherents and any policeman who advocates a specific form of "exercise" can quote you many cases to prove its effectiveness. Fortunately, most policemen are open-minded and quite willing to listen to a fellow officer representing an opposing school of thought. This leads to a widespread knowledge of the art of torture as practised within the law and makes for versatility.

Yes, everything considered, I think it is safe to say that the cop has been the most potent force in keeping the art of torture alive in modern American life. I appreciate the work he is doing in carrying on a long and honorable profession and I hope I won't sound hypercritical when I complain of 'his lack of finesse. As one who takes great pride in his country it pains me grievously to see other nations forge ahead of us in this field. This should not be.

I have a suggestion which, if followed, will remedy this distressing situation. I suggest we select from each metropolitan police force its most sadistic member. He shall then be sent to Russia to take a post-graduate course in torture. On his return he will take over the Chair of Torture in the local Police College. To make this plan as effective as possible gangsters, Southern gentlemen, strikebreakers, prison wardens, chain-gang supervisors, people with a race or color complex and all other interested parties will be admitted to the course free of charge.

My plan, I am sure, would bring new life, talent and artistry into American torture and it would only be a question of time until we assumed world leadership.

It is easy to assign credit for the Soviet's exceptionally meritorious performance. In the beginning there was Lenin, who said, "Do you think we can remain in power without having recourse to the most brutal methods?" There was a man who clearly understood how to retain office.

Lenin's attitude led, indirectly, to the formation of "The Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Sabotage, and the Dereliction of Duty," more commonly known as the Cheka and unquestionably the most murderous and bloodthirsty organization in the history of the modem world. With its informers, secret police, torturers, executioners, and charnel-houses located in every district of Russia the Cheka was a marvel of efficiency, as any organization which can torture and execute 1,761,065 people in the course of eight years must be. The Cheka never missed a bet. It had an executive known as the Director of Corpse Transportation and never threw away a body before making sure that the gold teeth had been extracted.

Such an organization must have a capable leader. The outstanding success of the Cheka in its chosen field was undeniably due to the genius of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the twentieth century Torquemada.

But Dzerzhinsky, no matter how willing, couldn't carry out the work of the Cheka singlehanded. He was supported by a huge organization, employing thousands of men. The Commissars of Death, as the official torturers and executioners were known, were the backbone of the Cheka. There were only a couple of hundred of these desirable and much sought after posts and some of the incumbents achieved their own especial brand of fame.

Peasant Pankratov, for example, with thousands of victims to his credit, was a punctual, quiet man who went about his work as meticulously as a bank clerk. He even kept a record of the number of bullets issued to him each day and the number used. Before killing his victims he used to flog them unmercifully, beat them' in the face with his revolver butt until they were unrecognizable and then, when the fun was over, shoot them. At the end of his day's work he would go quietly home to his mistress, a former prostitute. When he was promoted to a well-paid job in the government he left his whore behind for his successor.

Maga was one of the highest scoring of all the executioners, with 11,000 victims to his credit. His scoring ability was abruptly cut short on the day he went haywire and, pulling his gun, ordered some of his fellow executioners to the wall.

Zayenko, a mousy young man from Kharkov, disdained killing his victims with his own hands. He had a knack for artistic flogging and would end his part of the performance by skinning his victim's hands. The actual killing was left to his assistant, Eduard, who made it a point of honor never to shoot before telling the practically dead man a funny story.

Odessa was honored by the presence of a gargantuan Negro by the name of Johnson who had been one of the better Parisian pimps before he became "Comrade"-conscious. Johnson had a way with a knife and, with a few adroit strokes, could cut away the flesh and lay bare the sinews, which he ripped out by hand — to the extreme discomfiture of his living victim. He was noted for the broad smile that played over his features during the course of this operation and reckoned to be a man with a devilish sense of humor.

The girls of Russia weren't ones to shirk their duty and some of them, too, rose'to the front ranks. The blonde Vera Grebenniukova was probably the most famous. This young lady got her early training under Johnson but soon developed her own technic, which consisted of literally shredding her victims. With a feminine eye to the preservation of her clothes she frequently worked in the nude; bloodstains being notably difficult to remove. Vera may have been lacking in modesty, but not in energy. During one period of six weeks she accounted for seven hundred people at the rate of about fifteen a day.

Rosa Schwartz, of Kiev, also was a disciple of nudism. She always visited her victim's cell in the raw, smoking a cigarette and carrying a gun. After a chat and a smoke she would extinguish the cigarette in her victim's eyes and then start shooting. Essad-Bey, who has written the best account in English of the work of the Cheka, encountered another young lady in Moscow who loved dearly to go visiting the infirmaries, where the sick prisoners were, with a stout whip in her hand.

But for really thorough workmanship the Pole Achikine, of Simforopol, was the most noteworthy executioner of them all. He had a romantic preference for women prisoners. After stripping them he would first emulate the goat, and then, taking up a sword, cut off their ears, hands and breasts. Having warmed up to his work he would burn or pierce the eyes out and, in the end, cut off the head.

With such talented boys and girls in his employment it is easy to understand why Dzerzhinsky had little trouble in making the Cheka a household word in all Russia.

Nor were the operatives of the Cheka completely lacking in finesse and subtlety. A good many prisoners of the Cheka came out of prison with whole bodies. These fortunate ones had only to spend an unlimited number of weeks in solitary confinement in extremely hot or freezing cold dungeons. I shouldn't have said "solitary" confinement since they could enjoy the company of the large rats who dwelt with them. Others were shut up for extended periods of time in cells with raving maniacs or sexual lunatics. Some were prevented from sleeping for days on end and some fed nothing but salt herring while a water tap flowed constantly outside their cell door. And a few were left to philosophize for weeks, in brightly lighted cells, the walls, ceilings and floors of which were constructed of distortion mirrors~ These were the fortunate ones that came out of jail, as I said, with whole bodies. Whether, after the loss of their minds, their bodies were of much use to them during the remainder of their days in the insane asylums of Russia is something I leave you to judge.

Some of you may have felt that in assigning supremacy in torture to Russia I was overstating the case. I trust that the following quotations, as recorded by Maitre Aubert and Essad-Bey, will convince you that I was speaking the simple truth:

"In the city of Taganrog, in southern Russia, fifty young officers were bound hand and foot and flung alive into red hot blast furnaces. In Blagoveshchensk, corpses of officers and soldiers were found with gramophone needles under their nails, with their nails torn from their fingers, and with shoulder straps nailed to their flesh. In the Ussuri district Czech prisoners were found whose skulls had been smashed in, their genitalia amputated, their eyes put out and their tongues torn out.

"At Kharkov the butcher Saenko was celebrated for his skill in skinning heads and hands. He plunged the hands of the accused into boiling water, then tore off the skin to make human gloves. His abattoir was known as the Glove Factory.

"At Odessa officers were taken on board the steamer Sinope, fastened to beams with chains, put in front of the oven and slowly roasted. Others were cooked in boilers, then plunged into the icy sea, and thrown again into the oven. Still others were burnt alive, fastened to planks which were slowly pushed into ovens bit by bit, a few inches at a time." If you still refuse to recognize, with me, the supreme genius of the Russian people I can only make one last, despairing gesture and quote to you, from Nilostonski's Der BIutraush des Bolschewismus, this official description of the condition of the abattoirs on the day of the evacuation of Kiev.

"The whole of the concrete floor of the huge garage was covered with blood which, owing to the heat, had already coagulated; it was mixed with bits of brain, cranial bones, wisps of hair and other human remains, the whole resulting in a horrible mess several inches deep. Close by this gruesome scene, in the garden of the same house, there lay a hundred and twenty-seven bodies. The heads of all the corpses were battered in, some of the skulls being quite flat. They had probably been killed by having their heads flattened out by some sort of block. Others had no heads at all, but the latter had not been cut off; they had been torn away. In a far corner of the garden we discovered another common grave containing about eighty bodies. No one can have any idea of the wounds and mutilations we found upon them. Some had their bellies slit open, some had no limbs, some had been cut to pieces, some had their eyes put out and many had no tongues. We discovered a number of bodies which showed no signs of having met with violent death. But when they were examined by the doctors, the trachea and aesophagus of each victim was found to be full of earth. The wretched creatures had evidently been buried alive and had swallowed the earth as they tried to breathe. Among them were old men, young men, women and children. One woman was bound by a rope to her daughter, a child apparently of about eight years of age."