A Recommendation: "Torture Amnesia -- Shame on America"

Truong Son Traveler has written one of the best blog essays on the history of the torture issue in the United States, and I highly recommend readers of this blog take some time to read it. Titled Torture Amnesia -- Shame on America, it's written by someone who saw torture used first hand in Vietnam. The essay begins with the memory of that horrible encounter:

There are some things one never forgets. I'll never forget my brief encounter with torture 40 years ago. Our patrol engaged some VC hidden in a tree-line and a firefight ensued. The tree-line held a small hamlet. Predictably the village people fled in our direction. They fled because they knew their village would most likely be shelled, strafed or bombed. It was.

Our Viet counterparts detained a young lady they suspected of being a VC, a nurse they claimed. We brought her back to our dilapidated compound where they bound her, stripped off her shirt and attached wires to her nipples and proceed to use a crank operated electrical device to shock her. Needless to say it was thoroughly disgusting. Through it all she refused to talk. I admired her courage. I don't know where they sent her but I hope she survived.