LUDIC LOG

"Good morning, Sgt. Kane!"

"Morning, Mutaz."

"What is the matter?  You look as exhausted as I feel after you make me kneel for sixteen hours while stuffing pages from the Q'uran down my throat."

"Man, I've been up all night.  I'm beat."

"What is the problem, my friend?"

"I was on the phone with my friends and family.  They're getting hounded by reporters 24/7, you know, 'cause of this whole abuse scandal."

"You mean torture scandal?"

"Six of one, half dozen of the other, Mutaz.  The point is, they're having to deal with the press all day and all night.  It makes you sick.  I mean, thank God for the embedded reporters we have here, or I'd never get any sleep at all."

"Rick is not asking you any questions?"

"Are you kidding?  He's filing his fifth non-consecutive story about how Col. Melvin likes water polo."

"Well, perhaps it will all blow over.  You know, with the beheading thing."

"Yeah, maybe you're right.  And, well, that just proves my point.  Your people are all sawing a guy's head off on camera.  We never did anything like that."

"No, indeed not, Sgt. Kane.  I seem to recall that Pvt. Anderson stood on Mohammed's neck until he died..."

"Yeah, but at least his head stayed on.  That's very important to my people."

"And of course there was all the rape."

"They were alive after that, Mutaz."

"Yes.  You know when I look at it that way it turns out they were kind of lucky."

"Anyway, you can't deny that nothing that we do to y'all is as bad as how you had it under Saddam."

"Well, actually, I did quite well under the rule of Saddam Hussein.  I was a highly-paid electrical engineer.  I was never arrested until you showed up, so technically..."

"I'm speaking in general here, man."

"Ah.  Well, then, there is no question. You are right.  Things were much worse under Saddam Hussein."

"See?  That's all I'm saying.  Have some perspective."

"His was a reign of unparalleled terror.  A brutal, ruthless regime of deadly secret police so feared that adults would shiver to whisper their names."

"Yeah."

"Unspeakable horrors visited on the innocent and guilty alike, fiendish tortures far beyond what you Americans could imagine, let alone inflict."

"Uh..."

"Hundreds of exquisite deaths, from high-tech agonies to ancient techniques from the minds of the worst medieval torturers.  The sexual abuse, humiliation, death threats and torture inflicted us by you Americans is nothing compared to what the secret police came up with not even trying hard.  Oh, those times, today surely pales in comparison to the mind-bending terrors that Uday and Q'usay would..."

"Hey, Mutaz, give it a rest, okay?!?"

"But...but Sgt. Krebs!  I fear I have somehow offended you!  What can the matter be?"

"Look, we could do all that stuff if we wanted to, okay?"

"I..."

"We just don't want to.  Because we're the good guys.  It's not that we can't.  Understand?"

"Of...of course.  Yes,  I believe you."

"You're just humoring me."

"No!  Not a bit of it!  I'm sure you're capable of horrendous tortures."

"You don't think we could be worse than Saddam.  We're the world's only superpower, you know!"

"I know!  I am daily impressed."

"You don't sound like you mean it.  You're trying to make me feel better."

"I swear on my mother, Sgt. Krebs.  I am sure that if you were not such a moral nation, you would inflict upon us such horrors as would make the earth tremble."

"Aaaaw.  You're the best detainee a guy could ask for, Mutaz."

"It is only because I care, Sgt. Krebs."

"Well, thanks, anyway.  You really made my day."

"Of course."

"Now, I'm gonna go get a flashlight and some copper wire.  Be a sport and handcuff yourself to the bunk, will you?"

"It would be my pleasure."

"Oh, and bend over."

"Please, sergeant.  Like you even have to tell me."