Torture Becomes a Matter of Definition (preserve leeway to apply pressure

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-torture23jan23.story
Torture Becomes a Matter of Definition
Bush nominees refuse to say what's prohibited. U.S. dilemma is that it wants to disavow abuse but retain leeway in pressuring suspects.
By Sonni Efron
Times Staff Writer

January 23, 2005

WASHINGTON — The question Democratic senators put to Condoleezza Rice last week seemed easy enough to answer: Did the secretary of State nominee consider interrogation practices such as "water-boarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he will drown, to be torture?

She declined to answer.

"I'm not going to speak to any specific interrogation techniques," Rice said, adding that it was up to the Justice Department to define torture.

About the same time, senators on another committee were asking nearly identical questions and getting nearly identical answers from Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush's choice for attorney general.

The back-to-back confirmation flare-ups spotlight a problem the Bush administration faces in its policies for detaining and interrogating terrorism suspects.

In the months since the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the administration has insisted that America does not and will not use torture. At the same time, the government has tried to preserve maximum leeway in the interrogation of terrorism suspects by not drawing a clear line between where rough treatment ends and torture begins.<snip>

Yeah.....isn't it odd how the Bush administration's definition of torture is beginning to sound a bit like Bill Clinton's definition of "sex?"

My point is that this is not a complicated issue. Congress should ask Condi (and Bush) if they consider the U.S. to be bound by the same international laws as the rest of the world. They should only accept an answer of yes or no. No bullshit. If the answer is no then we know the truth. We know that the torture of prisoners is not the result of "rogue" soldiers at the bottom of the chain of command. We will know what I have suspected all along, that these incidents are simply the fruit of this administration's policies. When the leaders at the very top show such disdain and wanton disregard for the very rules they expect everybody else to follow it shouldn't be a surprise when this attitude manifests itself through the troops on the ground.

Of course no one within this administration would ever admit that they consider the United States immune to international law. That raises other issues. For starters it is a violation of international law to launch wars of aggression to effect regime change. Every time George Bush cites this as the latest justification for this fiasco in Iraq he is in effect confessing to a crime. If the answer is "yes," the U.S. is bound by international law then according to that law Bush is a war criminal and he should be tried in a world court.

It's a catch-22 for them. They're guilty both ways. But as long as these Congressional lapdogs allow them to redefine the issues then they never have to face reality. We don't need a debate on what constitutes torture. That is spelled out clearly in the Geneva Conventions. The only question is has torture been commited, and if so by whom?

not know. I don't think that methods should be questioned unless it's on an international or human rights forum. I can't see myself having mercy or speaking out against the wrongful treatment of said terror affiliated people.

*I'm bracing myself.

... people in cases when there is no real evidence against them, and if you aren't dismayed at the prospect of your friends or family being tortured simply because somebody suspects them of terrorist connections, then by all means support torture. I (incidently) suspect that you have ties to Al Qaeda and am considering anonymously denouncing you to the government.

If it doesn't bother you that torture is often used against political opponents of regimes, primarily in order to make an example of them and to terrify other people, then by all means support torture. You are a Bush supporter, aren't you? Or if you aren't, you're at least willing to keep your mouth shut indefinitely? You won't object if there's no real union organizing, will you, or if religious opponents of the US government disappear into night and fog?

If it doesn't bother you that torture is not uncommonly used as a form of entertainment by sadists in power, and is commonly associated with sexual assaults, as was the case at Abu Ghraib, then by all means support torture. You don't object to snuff films, do you? Perhaps you would like to star in one? What could possibly be the harm in providing longterm government employment to the hardcore S&M crowd, especially those who like to draw blood? You don't think it produced bad results in Germany, do you?

If it doesn't bother you that torture is very unlikely to produce good information, that people threatened with being blinded or castrated may be likely to say anything to avoid the pain, and if you don't mind a justice system in which human wrecks stumble into court rooms, plead guilty immediately, and then disappear forever, without much record of their faults except newspaper notice that they had conspired against the security of the homeland, then by all means support torture. You don't object if the innocent suffer, do you? As long as SOMEBODY pays for criminal activities, does it really matter whether the person punished is the actual guilty party or not?

In a context in which torture is permitted, by the way, who do you think can really permit himself or herself the luxury of actually trusting government? Doesn't all political opposition in such a context necessarily adopt the form of civil war?

What you advocate sounds to me like government by the mafiosi.

What about hooding (sensory deprivation) and sleep deprivation? -- its done not to cause pain (though it is agonizing), but to disorient the person so that they will let things slip.