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| WSJ takes on Sully: In Praise of Fake Menstrual Blood |
| 2005-10-22 |
| One of the oddest, and saddest, stories on the World Wide Web over the past few years has been the transformation of Andrew Sullivan. In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, he emerged as an eloquent supporter of America's war against Islamist terrorists; although we had disagreed with him about various domestic matters pre-9/11, we offered him "three cheers" in a Sept. 17, 2001, item. Perhaps he was a bit overenthusiastically militant at times, but that is a sin of which this column has probably not been totally innocent either. Sometime in the past two years, though, Sullivan turned into a fervent supporter of the "rights" of terrorists. His blog now consists largely of post after post bewailing the "torture" and "abuse" of the enemy. There are some important issues here, but Sullivan ignores crucial distinctions, treating Guantanamo as if it were the same as Abu Ghraib, illegal combatants as if they were legitimate prisoners of war. He even went so far as to endorse Sen. Dick Durbin's outrageous comparison of American servicemen to Nazis. It's all too self-righteous, over the top and voluminous to engage seriously, but one particular Sullivan fixation strikes us as telling. See if you can spot the recurring theme in these passages: "It is perfectly conceivable, given the torture policies promoted and permitted by this president, that desecration of the Koran has taken place in Guantanamo. Many other insane and inhumane interrogation tactics have turned out to be true. Remember smearing fake menstrual blood?"--May 14 "A simple question: after U.S. interrogators have tortured over two dozen detainees to death, after they have wrapped one in an Israeli flag, after they have smeared naked detainees with fake menstrual blood, after they have told one detainee to '[obscenity] Allah,' after they have ordered detainees to pray to Allah in order to kick them from behind in the head, is it completely beyond credibility that they would also have desecrated the Koran?"--May 16 "Does [White House press secretary Scott] McClellan really want the press to report more widely on what has been going on at Guantanamo Bay? Does he really want more stories about forced nakedness, female interrogators using panties and fake menstrual blood, and many reports from former inmates about deliberate misuse of the Koran? Well, let it rip, I say."--May 17 "Does Glenn [Reynolds] really believe for a second that idiotic tactics like brandishing fake menstrual blood or Stars of David at Muslim inmates are good interrogation practices? Does he think these excrescences have helped gain any useful intelligence in any way? The problem with these abuses is that they are evil and stupid; immoral and counter-productive, as so many experts in interrogation will testify."--May 18 "I'm not playing dumb. Shining shoes is not the same thing as treating prisoners as animals. It's not the same thing as smearing them with fake menstrual blood."--June 21 "Israeli interrogators do not kick the Koran or pee on it or throw it to the ground. They learn it word for word. They quote it back to their prisoners. They win their confidence and infiltrate their networks. They gain good intelligence by eschewing the goon-like antics of the Gitmo clowns. Fake menstrual blood? If it weren't so disgusting, it would be risible. But it's true. Remember that, whatever the Tarantos of this world want to deflect the conversation to. It's true. It happened. In the end, reality will count."--June 22 "From smearing inmates with fake menstrual blood, to desecrating the Koran, to forcing one Abu Ghraib prisoner to drink alcohol and eat pork, to burning Muslim corpses facing West . . . we now have a litany of abuses that are objectively evil and almost designed to lose us support among the broad Muslim population."--Oct. 20 (ellipsis in original) This list is by no means comprehensive, but you get the idea. The "fake menstrual blood" is apparently a reference to a reported incident, recounted in this Associated Press story from January, in which a female interrogator was questioning a Saudi detainee who had taken flight lessons in Arizona before 9/11: The interrogator left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash. Islam forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean. "The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength," says the draft, stamped "Secret." The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee. So the "fake menstrual blood" that Sullivan describes as "insane," "inhumane," "evil," "immoral" and "disgusting" turns out to be . . . red ink! And not even metaphorical red ink (i.e., debt, also forbidden in Islam), but actual red ink! Sullivan's frenzied reaction seems completely out of place--and it also leads us to think that the use of "fake menstrual blood" may be an effective interrogation technique, just as the Muslim linguist told the female interrogator it would be. Note how when Sullivan (or most anyone else) writes about this, it's always "fake menstrual blood," never just "fake blood." Lots of people are squeamish about blood, but the suggestion here is that there is something sordid about menstruation. This is nonsense. A woman's reproductive cycle is natural and normal. Girls realize this within hours of hitting puberty, but it takes longer for boys to figure out. To a preteen male, the news that women have periods is unsettling. But boys eventually become men, and most of them have intimate relationships with women, which helps to demystify the female reproductive system. To a mature man, menstruation is not a horror. There are, however, exceptions--adult men who remain strangers to the female body. Among them are homosexual men who identify as gay at a young age and thus do not have heterosexual experiences. Also among them are single men from sexually repressed cultures, such as fundamentalist Islamic ones, in which contact between the sexes is rigidly policed. Many of America's enemy prisoners fall into the latter category. If the mere idea of "fake menstrual blood" discombobulates Andrew Sullivan so, it stands to reason that its actual employment might be an excellent way to break the enemy's resistance. |
| Posted by:anon |
| #13 I used to enjoy Sullivan, back in the late 90's early 2000 - before AIDS dulled his intellect. Andy became bitter and angry because his goal was for acceptance, approval and to be seen as "normal". When it became clear that most Americans don't support gays in the military, homosexual marriage or gays in the Boy Scouts and think that advertising for bare-back sex in local papers a wee bit sleazy (he was outed by a democratic homosexual) his bitterness grew. Andrew is a conservative, but ultimately, everything is about acceptance of homosexuality to Andrew. He dislike Clinton because he backed down on the gays in the military and did not do enough - so he enjoyed his fall from grace and threw peanuts from the peanut gallery. When Bush II came around, I think Andy had high hopes that the "big tent", Log Cabin Republicans, etc. meant the time was right - the acceptance he so craved would finally be his. When it did not, and it became clear that the support just wasn't there, he turned his rage to the Bush administration with even more venom than he had for Clinton. He's a bitter old queen. |
| Posted by: Grush Tholuger7316 2005-10-22 23:42 |
| #12 Anonymoose, that's more than a tad bit too scary for me. (This does not in any way mean that I disagree with the WSJ take, because I don't.) |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2005-10-22 23:24 |
| #11 Apparently odd menstrual fetish for a gay male, no? |
| Posted by: Hupitle Snomoth2094 2005-10-22 23:24 |
| #10 Waste of effort and pixels. I don't read Sullivan anymore but why waste time lamenting his change and trying to psycho analyze him. I've read Jonah Goldberg, James Taranto and dozens of bloggers trying to dissect Sulli's transformation. Taranto implies a lack of maturity and insecurity. Well I say that obsessing about someone else's obsessions is also a sign of insecurity. Forget about Sulli. Making Abu Ghraib the central theme of the War on Terror is ridiculous. But if Sulli insists this is THE central issue, than leave him be. There are still many pundits and public figures who are far worse and far more deserving of attack. I refuse to read one more sentence about this silly little intra-pundit class scorning END OF DISCUSSION |
| Posted by: John in Tokyo 2005-10-22 21:58 |
| #9 Sully is a bath house whore who would out anyone if they didn't take an oath to promote homodumb. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-10-22 15:47 |
| #8 Any shrinks want to comment on Sullian's obsession with Menstrual blood? Or the Islamic obsession with it? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-10-22 15:35 |
| #7 And we can't cure the common cold? |
| Posted by: Angoluter Thaling7722 2005-10-22 15:07 |
| #6 As far as unnerving goes, remember that only the US military is obsessive about using only psychological means to interrogate. All of the complaints heard, every one, involves only psychological means. You will not now, nor most likely ever, hear of the means used by other US agencies. Not torture, as you would think of it, because torture doesn't work, but "other means". My nickname for it is "The Rat Program". The Rat Program is purely imaginitive. It is based on the idea that the technology of interrogation, like other technologies, have improved markedly since WWII. Sap gloves, sodium pentathol, and electric shocks are antiques. What *might* be used today? There are great possibilities... We know that electrodes in the brain can stimulate involuntary actions and thoughts. We have microphones the size of a pinhead, and batteries that could power them for months. Explosives the volume of a quarter, but as powerful as a pound of C4. We have advanced, drug-induced hypnosis. GPS and RFID technologies. Neuro-drugs that can do astounding things: endorphine blockers, hallucinogens, mood enhancers. Few jihadis have much real information. They are an ignorant lot. And yet, left to their own devices, they might gravitate towards those that matter. They might become involuntary spies, assassins and traitors. We might re-write their mind to make them a dedicated anti-terrorist. We might even put an "off" switch in them, for when they are no longer needed. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-22 14:46 |
| #5 Sullivan's not a mature man Can you say Catcher? Caught too many balls to the chin, apparently |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-10-22 14:24 |
| #4 To a mature man, menstruation is not a horror. Sullivan's not a mature man. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-10-22 12:36 |
| #3 Com - that's a keeper. Didn't realize they were so fragile. Time to bring out the supersoakers. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-10-22 10:44 |
| #2 |
| Posted by: .com 2005-10-22 10:40 |
| #1 And Sully will get his panties in a bunch yet again with the story mentioned above, regardless of its veracity. |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-10-22 10:36 |