Please get a grip on reality, or cite an example where a terrorist in Gitmo has had a toilet brush shoved up her vagina many times then has hot pepper sauce put in there - to the point that the person can’t lie down for a year, another can’t walk ‘normally’ ever since.
You are really talking about 2 different things, China tortures, the US may occasionally make a EPW uncomfortable, any comparison between the 2 is despicable.
WTF does this mean?!?!
How do you know what the US does to unknown prisonners detained in secret prisons for undisclosed reasons, exactly?
It’s not a toilet brush in a vagina, but what’s your opinion on:
The Taguba report on Abu Ghraib. See 8 (g).
Two very different things indeed.
(Italics mine)
When did the phrase I italicized above become key to the definition of torture. Before our current administration defined it so was the intentional causing of lifelong disability or intentional cause of organ failure the absolute baseline requirement for something to be torture?
I had always understood that torture was the intentional causing of pain to make the subject comply with your wishes (or just to get your rocks off). It was merely that most of the ways of causing that pain have historically been likely to do crippling damage.
If I remember correctly from the '30’s Moscow show trials and any number of cold war thrillers, part of the genius of the Soviets was their ability to thoroughly torture someone without doing permanent physical damage.
D’oh preview preview preview. Forgot that quote auto-italicizes.
What I was rambling about was the recent addendum to definition of torture requiring deliberate permanent damage to the subject.
Costa Gavras’ “The confession” (based on an autobiography) depicts the ordeal of one of the accused of the Prague’s trial. At no point the man is beaten or physically tortured. Just sleep deprivation, sense deprivation, unending interrogations, uncomfortable positions, etc… (all methods imported from stlinist Russia). But watching this movie would probably make people who believe that “some discomfort” can in no way be compared with outright torture think twice. I would take a severe beating plus anal rape with a broomstick anyday over 1/10th of this “non torture” the guy had to go through.
If I had been the Czech PR man at this time, I too woud have told the medias : No real torture, just a little sleep deprivment, making him walk (“Walk!” “Stand up! Walk!” “Wake up! Walk!” “Walk”!), things like that…and would have been perfectly truthful. Which didn’t prevent everyone amongst the people detained to fully admit to every possible crime.
I’m wondering how people who swallow the PR’s bullshit about “not real torture” link and sinker can at the same time believe it’s no big deal and efficient to obtain information.
QUOTE=kanicbird]
You are really talking about 2 different things, China tortures, the US may occasionally make a EPW uncomfortable, any comparison between the 2 is despicable.
[/QUOTE]
From here the U. S. used the following: “sexual humiliation, hooding, use of dogs, tying prisoners up in “stress positions”, mandatory nudity, humiliating prisoners for their religious faith”.
Now kanicbird, please explain how this is “occasionally making an EPW uncomfortable”.
Then there’s the Jones-Fay report, saying that Americans at Aub Ghraib routinely “participated in intentional violent and sexual abuse”. A list follows. But hey, it’s just making “a EPW uncomfortable”, right?
And The Schlesinger Report, saying that “There were at least 300 reports of instances of abuse at Abu Ghraib- sometimes fatally abusive treatment.” Apparently kanicbird feals that death is only slightly uncomfortable.
And then there’s waterboarding at CIA detention centers, which the CIA has confirmed. This is a tactic invented and frequently used by the Spanish Inquisition. I guess the Spanish Inquisition really wanted to make people “uncomfortable”, but nothing more.
And last but not least, Ian Fishback told us that the United States regularly used “death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment”. Kanicbird, I hope for your sake that nobody ever tries to make you “uncomfortable”.
According to the definition used by Dubya, Condi and most other conservatives, shoving a toilet brush up someone’s vagina many times and then puting hot pepper sauce there so that they can’t lie down for a year and can never walk normally ever since is not “torture”. So what’s your problem? Are you saying that Dubya’s definition is wrong?
The difference is that here (and Abu Grabe) it was a crime to commit this and the person doing it is facing military justice. In China it is a government job to do it - even other inmates are rewarded for helping.
If you wish to do a thread as to who is better at torture, the US or China feel free.
That wasn’t my argument. You said that US “abu grabe” torture and Chinese torture were two very different things. My position is that brushes in vaginas or brooms in anuses are pretty much the same thing. When we’re talking about raping prisoners with household items, I don’t think we can talk about one group being better or worse than another.
And it’s “Abu Ghraib”. I even spelled it for you. Here you go: “torture”, “Abu Ghraib”. Perhaps with this help, you’ll be able to even google up a cite for exactly what sanctions have been imposed on those who shoved glowsticks / broomsticks up the anuses of detainees. Perhaps you’ll also be able to google up a cite for this not being a “government job” under the direction of military intelligence staff. On the question of whether the acts committed upon defenceless and largely innocent detainees at Abu Ghraib are considered crimes by the US, perhaps you’d like to take a look at the recent arguments of Vice-President Cheney (that’s C-H-E-N-E-Y) in favour of allowing such acts.
By the way, the second quote you post is not from me. Please look out for that kind of thing in future.