Former Beiruit hostage Tom Sutherland is now more rich that Donald and his son combined (probably). . .

June 26, 2001 6:41 PM

Former Beiruit hostage Tom Sutherland is now more rich that Donald and his son combined (probably). . . $53m comes from the US tax payers. The other $300m he was awarded to be sifted out Iran somehow. Granted, he and "cell-mate" Terry Anderson spent 70 months chained, gagged and probably unbathed, but can't they honestly say now, this was the best thing that could ever have happened to them? "We're not going to build any new houses or move away from Fort Collins . . .. We'll just be the same guys." Sutherland pooh-poohed the high falutin' rumors. What'd they expect teaching school in a den of lions?
posted by crasspastor (9 comments total)

Damnit! Stupid spelling errors and omissions galore (well, two of them). That "that", that was supposed to be a "than" in the headline, I pray doesn't make things more abstruse than I probably already made them. . .
posted by crasspastor at 6:52 PM on June 26, 2001

I wrote it's "the best thing that's happened to them" with the qualification that "but can't they honestly say now" bit. When I had my nervous breakdown or my DUI six years ago, it sucked. Both thrust me into bankruptcy, joblessness (loss of job because no more drivie for me), built rifts in my relationships. Yeah it really sucked. Was my life ever threatened? Not by anyone other than myself. Was I tortured? Felt like it. Yet, looking back on it, all I can really say is, I'm glad it happened. As I wouldn't be where I am now (happy, positive, cognizant of what a DUI's all about and on my all too important meds). I'm really not lessening the pain they went through, in other words.
posted by crasspastor at 7:34 PM on June 26, 2001

can't they honestly say now, this was the best thing that could ever have happened to them?

crasspastor, don't take this personally but i think you are way out of line there.

two years ago i attended attended the 2nd annual amnesty international (canada) human rights festival at acadia university. one of the speakers was a wonderful woman who had escaped torture and lived to tell the tale. it had been somewhere around ten years since she came to canada and her physical body was heartrending to see. she looked like walking death, an undead caricature of human failure.

her tales of torture were so horrific that i, a seasoned human rights activist, literally had to stop my gag reflex several times. you know not the depths of human experience until you know the grim intricacies of torture. it is the denial of death, the imposition of unrelenting pain. when begging for death becomes your only prayer, you have nothing. absolutely nothing.

i hope you reconsider your opinion.
posted by will at 7:59 PM on June 26, 2001

Crass, I understand where you're comin' from, and it is a good thing that these guys are getting financially compensated for the years of their lives that have been stripped from them, but that's just to try to put a bandaid on a severed limb. Until you actually experienced being held captive and tortured for five years, I really can't take seriously your claim that you'd be willing to accept such a deal, even for enough crack money to cover a couple hundred thousand strippers' mammary glands.

In my book, money will never compensate for life. It's a token of compensation, but it doesn't equal or even shadow the cost. And with that said, I'm seriously considering contacting Fear Factor cuz I'd eat beetles and throw up on television for fifty thousand dollars.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:19 PM on June 26, 2001

Like I've tried to explain; I was not insinuating that what torture was endured by Sutherland has rendered his memories, nightmares and physical scars suddenly reminescent of pleasure. I was not belittling tragedy, indeed of humanity as a whole if, as they are, things like this "possible" in this world. And I also was not intimating that Iran should not have to pay compensatory damages. And a 100% unequivocal no sir, was my intent to disqualify anybody's (or anybeing's) experience who has undergone excruciating pain at the hands of bloodlusting zealots of any slant.

My point was the sum that seemed to me (if what Hicandenza points out is false) to be a ludicrously large for US taxpayers to have to foot. I wonder what settlement the speaker at Amnesty International was able to secure. And if so, if it could be possibly as high as what the link refers to. All this of course if it isn't some strategy to get a certain to be reluctant Iran to pay up.

Also again, not to call into credulity what those who have been tortured have had to put up with in reliving over and over their darkest days. But what we know of severe mental illness can also be described as:

grim intricacies of torture. it is the denial of death, the imposition of unrelenting pain. when begging for death becomes your only prayer, you have nothing. absolutely nothing.

Again that is not meant as an insult to any of those who have gone through like afflictions. Seriously!
posted by crasspastor at 10:37 PM on June 26, 2001

Your not seeing the downside of being chained to a wall for 70 months. They arnt the same people coming out. You would not be the same person. Look at this way: they dont plan on doing anything with the money except give it to charity. Is that what you would do with the money? Not now, but after 70 months.. you might... and then what good is the money to you.
posted by stbalbach at 4:53 AM on June 27, 2001