Original cartoon by Joel Barbee
In my daily stroll through ToonPool I find this cartoon by the American cartoonist Joel Barbee among the most commented on the site. The subject is torture by the controversial Waterboarding procedure and the message Joel leaves is that justifying this method in interrogations of alleged terrorists does not kill anyone and, according to his criteria, saves thousands of lives.
And what can’t be denied, even without understanding it, is that many people share this thinking.
If you want to know what this cruel form of torture consists of, you can watch journalist Christopher Hitchens undergoinga videotaped waterboarding session as an experiment.
The provocation, more than evident, brings back the hot controversy once again about the“illegal” and cruel tortures in Guantánamo (I doubt that there are cruelty-free tortures) by the US army, all among the voices of the denialists.
Some, debating with humour as an umbrella, see it as cruel and malicious demagoguery while others consider that it cannot be considered humour, not even black humour, crossing comments in favour of it as a somewhat annoying but necessary truism.
As the discussion on the site is being conducted in English and the positions both for and against are beginning to accumulate, I’m dragging it here in case anyone wants to comment on the approach and message of Joel’s crude and not at all subliminal cartoon.
does torture save lives?
Update 08/05 The vignetodrome has opened a section called “The most demagogic cartoon of the month”, where they will publish those cartoons that they consider demagogic, out of tune, unfair, really bad, etc? It will be the anti-vignetodrome section of the vignetodrome. They have already published the selectedones for the month of April.
