Scar Tissue of the Mind

[T]he memo "concludes that 'the use of waterboarding constitutes a threat of imminent death,' but is nonethless permissible and legal because it does not result in "prolonged mental harm."

--Jane Hamsher @ firedoglake

I'm reminded (as I am so often) of Fyodor Dostoevsky, who as a young man was arrested by the czar's secret police for his association with the subversive Petrashevsky Circle. He was sentenced to death and brought before a firing squad. Obviously, it was all a ruse: Just before the squad let loose, an imperial messenger arrived, bearing a letter of amnesty.

Dostoevsky was haunted by the experience for the rest of his days, and it's thought to have contributed to his turn away from sunny liberalism and toward the morbid existentialism and 'fear and trembling' Christianity for which he is famous.

Brushes with death are almost by definition scarring events. That's why totalitarian regimes use waterboarding, fake firing squads, and so on. They are known to traumatize, breaking strong men, leaving them whimpering emotional cripples who pose no danger to the establishment.

As a semi-relevant side note, Dostoevsky's father was fatally, er, boozeboarded: His serfs knocked him down, restrained him, and poured vodka down his nose and mouth until he drowned.