#torture

I got hold of a copy of the video that showed how Saddam Hussein had actually confirmed himself in power. This snuff-movie opens with a plenary session of the Ba'ath Party central committee: perhaps a hundred men. Suddenly the doors are locked and Saddam, in the chair, announces a special session. Into the room is dragged an obviously broken man, who begins to emit a robotic confession of treason and subversion, that he sobs has been instigated by Syrian and other agents. As the (literally) extorted confession unfolds, names begin to be named. Once a fellow-conspirator is identified, guards come to his seat and haul him from the room. The reclining Saddam, meanwhile, lights a large cigar and contentedly scans his dossiers. The sickness of fear in the room is such that men begin to crack up and weep, rising to their feet to shout hysterical praise, even love, for the leader. Inexorably, though, the cull continues, and faces and bodies go slack as their owners are pinioned and led away. When it is over, about half the committee members are left, moaning with relief and heaving with ardent love for the boss. (In an accompanying sequel, which I have not seen, they were apparently required to go into the yard outside and shoot the other half, thus sealing the pact with Saddam. I am not sure that even Beria or Himmler would have had the nerve and ingenuity and cruelty to come up with that.) ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#ba-athism #ba-athist-iraq #beria #conspiracy #cull

War is organized murder and torture against our brothers. ↗

— Alfred Adler

#brothers #murder #organized #our #torture

What girls do to each other is beyond description. No chinese torture comes close. ↗

— Tori Amos

#chinese #close #comes #description #each

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws. ↗

— Francis Bacon

#constructions #hard #inferences #judges #laws

To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them. ↗

— Georges Bataille

#equivalent #evils #existence #god #harmony

To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster! ↗

— Denis Diderot

#attempt #complete #desire #destruction #end

When love grows diseased, the best thing we can do is to put it to a violent death; I cannot endure the torture of a lingering and consumptive passion. ↗

— George Etherege

#cannot #death #diseased #endure #grows

When my father was arrested, we didn't know where they had him. My mother found him at the house of torture. It was called Villa Triste. ↗

— Oriana Fallaci

#called #father #found #had #him

I would say that the war correspondent gets more drinks, more girls, better pay, and greater freedom than the soldier, but at this stage of the game, having the freedom to choose his spot and being allowed to be a coward and not be executed for it is his torture. ↗

— Robert Capa

#being #better #choose #correspondent #coward

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education. ↗

— John Updike

#children #decided #education #equipped #fathers