Fruit of the Poison Tree

See, here's the thing.

Torture corrupts.

Call it what you want; "enhanced interrogation", "extraordinary measures", "psikhushka". The systematic infliction of suffering is inherently corrupting to the people who administer it and the organizations that employ it.

Because torture is not interrogation.

Interrogation is intended to gain information.

Torture is intended to gain confessions. Confessions that the torturers want to hear.

A person that uses torture to gain confessions becomes useless as an interrogator and deaf to information. The agonized babble of a person suffering beyond coherence quickly becomes meaningless noise. If you are tortured you will say anything, everything, to make the torture stop. If you are the torturer you lose the ability to find the truth amid the pain and fear.

An organization that employs torture and torturers quickly becomes a servant of the propaganda that the torture is meant to support and the presumptions that the torture is designed to confirm.

Armies that use torture begin to become instruments of that propaganda rather than instruments of policy. Intelligence agencies that use torture begin to become guardians of the secrets of and defenders of the barbarities of torture rather than cold instruments of state. Nations that use torture quickly find how useful it is in generating results that they want in the short term. And the spiral of torture, and lying to hide the torture, and lying to excuse the torture, and lying to hide and excuse the lies, works deeper and deeper into the culture of the army, and the intelligence agency, and the nation.

Until first the torturers end up running the intelligence agency.

And then the torturers become the generals.

And, finally, the torturers become the presidents and prime ministers.

The toxic "war on terror" has been the ground that has nursed this poison tree, and has given it the night and fog it needed to grow. To our shame We the People have never insisted on throwing open the doors, letting in the light that would have killed this noxious weed, never dug deep and uprooted and thrown it and the torturers on the fire. In our fear and hate we have let it grow.

If shame were still a permissible public emotion we should be ashamed of ourselves.

But we will not.

And, instead, we will nurture the fruit of that poison tree in our hands and our hearts.

Sixteen

Hey, love. Come. Sit with me.

I miss you.

Well, I know. Yes, I miss you all the time. But this time, every year, I miss you a little more, because this was your birthday and birthdays are special.

No. I didn't get you anything. I'm sorry.

Well, sixteen is hard. You are not a woman grown but not a child anymore, either. It's hard to know what you like, you change so quickly. One day it was all sparkle princesses and ponies, then it seemed like just the next day it was CDs and clothes and new soccer cleats. It's hard for your dad to keep up with you, you run so fast now.

I don't know how you do it, as little as you are.

You are little, sweetie. Only one day old, dust and ashes all these years. The only place you grew was in my heart, and in your mom's, who hurts for you so much she cries out for you.

I miss you, too.

But I miss the you I never knew. The little girl frightened of scary noises. The busy tween. The rude teenager. And, now, the young woman, strong and sure, lit from within with promise, like a star, or a lighted window on a cold lonely night.

There's just this one night, though.

Your birthday, every year, when you come and sit with me. And that night, like every night I miss you, again, and wish I could kiss you, just once, before we have to say goodbye.

Yes, love. Yes, I will wait for you here again next year, my very dear.

Goodbye. Yes, love, I love you. Goodbye, sweetie.

Goodbye.

When I die choose a star
and name it after me
that you may know
I have not abandoned
or forgotten you.
You were such a star to me,
following you through birth
and childhood, my hand
in your hand.

When I die
choose a star and name it
after me so that I may shine
down on you, until you join
me in darkness and silence
together.

~ David Ignatow

Bryn Rose Gellar March 1, 2002 - March 2, 2002