Sunday, April 01, 2007

Monty Python Strikes Back

The satirical wit of Terry Jones is beyond compare. If you aren't a fan of Monty Python, you should definitely check it out because it is not to be missed. However there is a serious side to the creator of Monty Python and he took the U.S. and the U.K to task over the treatment of prisoners by the two countries in an Op Ed today.

From The Guardian:

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn't be able to talk at all. Of course they'd probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at least they wouldn't be humiliated.


So the commentary cannot be done without humor, we are talking about Terry Jones after all. Like all comedians out there, the amount of material that is made available to make light of is almost insurmountable. Of course I'd rather laugh at something meaningless like Will Ferrell's "Blades of Glory" than the torture of captives held by Britain and the United States. I definitely recommend that movie if you are looking to have your mind numbed from all of our governments' insanity for an hour and a half.