LEBANON, TENNESSEE – CIA interrogators forced Abu Zubaydah, a suspected Al Qaeda operative, to eat at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store 83 times in one month, according to recently released Justice Department legal memorandum from 2005.
With its punishing cuisine and cruel décor, a single visit to the popular American chain restaurant is widely considered to be within the legal definition of torture.
“If this is true,” commented an Obama administration official on condition of anonymity, “it is beyond the pale.”
According to the memo, Abu Zubaydah and other detainees were secretly rendered to the original Lebanon, Tennessee, Cracker Barrel restaurant for the treatment.
Speaking of Abu Zubaydah’s treatment last year, John Kirkus, a former CIA officer, previously told NTN that interrogators had “only made him eat, like, one Awesome Blossom at Outback, on a Friday during happy hour, after someone else ordered it and couldn’t finish it.”
“And maybe some cheese fries with ranch dressing,” he added.
Previous Justice Department memos had authorized “limited and supervised administration” of Cracker Barrel’s food, known as “crackerbarreling,” but recent revelations have shown that, in the words of one CIA insider, “they just kept piling it on.”
“Forget about the Geneva Conventions,” said Janet Winnets, a professor of human rights law at Harvard, after reading the most recent memo. “What about conventions of human decency? Eighty-three times in that hellhole? Eighty-three encounters with country-fried steak? How anyone could do this to another human being and still be able to sleep at night is beyond me.”
“And by the way,” she added, “What the f—k is a chocolate cobbler? Aren’t cobblers by definition made of fruit?”
According to the memo, after only his third crackerbarreling Abu Zubaydah begged to be stripped naked and placed in a stress position instead, with electric-shock cables clamped to his testicles. His request was denied.
“By the grace of Allah, please do not make me take another bite of hashbrown casserole,” he said.
“If I have to walk past those old time toys, classic candies, or scented candles one more time,” another detainee is reported to have exclaimed, “I’m going to tear my eyeballs out.”
“Crockery jugs, seed sowers, horse collars and hames. The horror…”
A suit filed by ACLU lawyers on behalf of 11 detainees claims that the CIA destroyed certain items from Cracker Barrel.
“Country ham n’ biscuits, beans n’ greens, beverages n’ juices – we’re pretty sure they secretly rendered the word ‘and’ from the Cracker Barrel menu as well,” said one lawyer familiar with the case.
Speaking on the program “Fox News Sunday,” former CIA chief Michael Hayden declined to comment on the memo. He did however say that “There is no evidence that anyone from CIA abducted the ‘and’ from Cracker Barrel n’ secretly rendered it to an undisclosed location a kilometer n’ a half inside the front gate n’ up on the left-hand side after you make yer first turn past the old shed on the main road of the U.S. military base – I mean, Royal Thai Air Force base – in Udon Thani, Thailand.”
The fact that crackerbarreling was used so many times in such a short period may raise questions about its effectiveness. Off the record, however, CIA interrogators insist the technique was effective. The mere mention of “chicken-fried chicken,” they say, could make some captives shudder.
“Let me tell ya, it brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘spilled his guts.’ ”
