When House Majority Leader John Boehner accused Democrats last week of wanting to protect the "rights" of terrorists more than the lives of Americans, a number of Republican Senators winced – because they knew Boehner's accusation also applied to three of their colleagues:  John Warner, Lindsay Graham, and most especially, John McCain.

A lot of folks who have had personal contact with McCain think a part of him is mentally unhinged.  It scares them to death that he might be president.  The upside of the debacle he has caused opposing President Bush's proposed legislation on terrorist interrogation is that there are enough voters now who see his mental instability to block his White House aspirations.

Yet if McCain is around the mental bend, even more so is the Supreme Court – or at least the five Justices (Breyer, Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg) whose pro-terrorist ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (June 29, 2006) is the cause of this mess.

The Justices held that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions must apply as a matter of treaty obligation to the United States military regarding captured Moslem terrorists. 

Because the undefinable vagueness of Article 3 means that ACLU lawyers defending terrorists could try to put military or CIA interrogators in jail for any "humiliating and degrading treatment" they inflicted upon the terrorists, the entire terrorist interrogation program will be shut down unless Congress protects the interrogators with legislation.

This is why Bush so urgently wants Congress to act, and this is why McCain is in the way.  So traumatized by his being tortured by North Vietnamese Communists, he sees no difference between them and American interrogators, and has taken the side of the terrorists.

For those interested in the tortured logic of the Supreme Court, I am appending a discussion of it at the end of this article.

As for the tortured logic of John McCain – so tortured that he insists on providing terrorists and their ACLU attorneys classified information no matter if  doing so would disclose the sources – all we can hope for is that Bill Frist can just this once summon the courage to stand up to him.

What we're going to talk now about is torture, and how it isn't necessary.  For there is a way, using a knowledge of brain chemistry, to make a terrorist quickly and easily sing like a canary – without any torture at all. 

The only practical argument against torturing terrorists is that it's so undependable: the guy will say anything to stop the torture. Often, a dramatic presentation of the threat of torture works better.

Take the Israeli way:

When a Palestinian terrorist is captured, how many Israeli lives can be saved depends on how quickly and efficiently Shin Bet (Israeli Security) agents can make him squeal. They strip him naked and sit him in a chair with his legs forced apart. They bring in a large Doberman pincher whose muzzle is placed inches from his genitals. They explain:

"This is Herman. Herman is a very unusual dog. Herman can smell when someone is lying. When someone lies, it gets Herman very mad. And when Herman gets mad, he bites – really hard. So we suggest you tell us the truth."

Works like a charm.

There is, however, an interrogation method far more effective than torture, or the threat of it, that is foolproof, immediate, and humane. It works the first time, every time, with everybody — no exceptions. Yet it is harmless, completely reversible, with no aftereffects.

First, a little background in brain chemistry. Your brain synthesizes, or manufactures, natural brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, which are necessary for the proper functioning of various activities. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers which transmit the appropriate signals through brain circuits for thinking, feeling, and motor action.

One such neurotransmitter is called serotonin. Serotonin is an "inhibitory" neurotransmitter, and its constant presence is absolutely required for a normal and non-psychotic state of mind.

Neurotransmitters are synthesized in the cell bodies of the neurons in the brain from specific nutrients in one's diet. Norepinephrine, for example, responsible for alertness and mental energy, is synthesized from the amino acid phenylalanine and a number of additional co-factors. Caffeine works by stimulating the release and prolonging the activity of norepinephrine.

The neurotransmitter serotonin is synthesized from the amino acid tryptophan. Without tryptophan, the brain cannot make serotonin. This mechanism applies not only to the human brain, but to the brain of every species in the animal kingdom, from dogs to rats to elephants to birds.

There have been numerous experiments that demonstrate the effects of a tryptophan-free diet on brain function in humans. Within about four hours, brain serotonin levels drop like a rock. Lacking the inhibitory regulation of serotonin, the brain becomes incapable of modulation. The individual possessor of such a brain rapidly becomes angry, depressed, and impulsive — incapable of controlling his emotions.

The last thing a captured terrorist, intent on withholding information and resistant to interrogation, wants is to be uncontrollably impulsive. Such an individual would be putty in the hands of a skilled interrogator.

The means of converting a terrorist into putty is TFM Interrogation, using tryptophan-free meals (TFMs). Not protein-free meals. Meals engineered to have only tryptophan excluded, and all other essential amino acids present. Protein is, of course, a package or assemblage of various combinations of amino acids.

With a protein-free meal, blood amino levels will drop, causing the liver and other organs to start extracting aminos from blood albumin, then from muscle, then from organ tissue. Such amino extraction will include tryptophan. In other words, deprived of dietary protein, the body will cannibalize itself in order to supply the brain with tryptophan and other vital aminos.

But a meal engineered to provide all necessary aminos except tryptophan exclusively will not cause such cannibalization. The liver has no capacity to notice the lack of one single amino such as tryptophan, just the overall lack of entire assemblies of aminos, or protein.

A TFM is a semi-synthetic meal replacement, prepared in the form of a porridge, for example. It can contain plenty of real starch, plenty of real fat, plenty of real sugar or honey — plenty of real chocolate if desired. What it cannot contain is any complex protein at all. Instead, it must contain about 30 grams of a synthetic mixture of all essential aminos in crystalline form — specifically excluding tryptophan.

Further, such a mixture should contain the same ratio of aminos as milk or meat, but with an extra amount of the aminos phenylalanine and tyrosine, which will both block any tryptophan extracted from the body reaching the brain, and increase the subject's levels of anxiety and anger.

Three such TFMs should be given to the subject over 12 hours, with the subject not having anything to eat prior to the first TFM for several hours. After four hours, the subject will become agitated, depressed, angry, and impulsive. He obviously must be heavily guarded and possibly restrained. Over the next eight to twelve hours, his symptoms will increase, becoming suicidal. If subjected to a TFM diet over a period of several days, he will become fully psychotic.

After a 12-hour round of interrogation during a TFM period, the subject should then receive a TFM with one or two grams of crystalline tryptophan added (it's tasteless so he won't notice any difference). He will calm down and feel pleasant.

Then a "good cop" interrogator can step in and soothe him. Next meal time, it's back to the TFM, and back the subject goes into uncontrollable impulsiveness. The subject will quickly develop a real fear of the "bad cop" interrogator who interrogates him during the TFM periods.

There are no side or after-effects of TFM Interrogation. It is completely reversible immediately within an hour or less after one regular non-TFM meal. TFM Interrogation can be performed in the field, at Gitmo, anywhere. Red Cross observers could be present.

They could even analyze the subject's blood — for whatever they test for, they wouldn't think of testing for a lack of tryptophan. And even if they did, what would be the complaint? Malnutrition? Malnutrition that lasts for less than 24 hours?

TFM Interrogation is the solution to the tortured logic of the Supreme Court.  And the Pentagon and CIA interrogators can start using it right now, without even waiting for the Senate to protect them from the ACLU.

Appendix

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld overturned the DC Circuit's ruling that Common Article 3 of the The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War was inapplicable to Hamdan because the conflict with Al Qaeda is international in scope and thus not a "conflict not of an international character."  "That reasoning," the five Justices decided, "is erroneous."

Article 3 states that the Geneva Convention applies to prisoners of war only "in the case of armed conflict not of an international character."  How could the Justices possibly argue that the war of terrorism Al Qaeda is waging against America is not international?

Here's how they tried, quoting from the Majority decision:

That the quoted phrase [a "conflict not of an international character"] bears its literal meaning and is used here in contradistinction to a conflict between nations is demonstrated by Common Article 2 [see link above for full wording], which limits its own application to any armed conflict between signatories and provides that signatories must abide by all terms of the Conventions even if another party to the conflict is a nonsignatory, so long as the nonsignatory "accepts and applies" those terms. 

Common Article 3, by contrast, affords some minimal protection, falling short of full protection under the Conventions, to individuals associated with neither a signatory nor even a nonsignatory who are involved in a conflict "in the territory of" a signatory. The latter kind of conflict does not involve a clash between nations (whether signatories or not).

Thus does the Supreme Court justify forcing the US to treat terrorists as bona-fide Prisoners of War with all the rights assigned to them by the Geneva Convention.

The entire capacity of our military to interrogate terrorists and extract information from them which could prevent terrorist acts from killing multitudes of Americans is in mortal jeopardy because of the tortured logic of this decision.

Let's see, John Paul Stevens is 86, Ruth Bader Ginsburg may be dying of cancer.  If Bush gets to replace them with the likes of Alito and Roberts, we may finally get a Supreme Court that can think clearly.