Comments on: Stuff that isn't obviously torture if you're a US gov't official

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:24:00 +0000

Those organizations don’t stop this stuff from happening, but at least they provide some opposition when it does. They also score some very real and important legal victories every once in a while. They don’t always win but they beats the hell out of giving up.

By: bardfinn

bardfinn — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Some people both want and need solitary. It’s a damn sight better than gang rape and HIV infection, being shanked repeatedly, or the various other dangers of general population.

By: bardfinn

bardfinn — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:56:00 +0000

Forced Grooming is removal of body hair; delousing powder; showers (cold); loofah-onna-stick; antifungals; isolation.

By: bardfinn

bardfinn — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:53:00 +0000

No, no they oughtn’t. They should be arrested, treated humanely, set on trial, convicted, and placed in a jail cell – and all possible fruits of their crimes should be confiscated and redistributed.
We don’t have to stoop to the level of the criminals. We don’t have to let them profit from their crimes.

By: Mordicai

Mordicai — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:14:00 +0000

Seriously, I can’t watch those shows or like, any police procedural ’cause I’m all “the crooks are the cops, they are totally violating that suspect’s rights, I can’t watch this.” The “good guys” we’re fed on all these cookie cutter cop shows are seriously ruining the way that people perceive their rights & the ways that jury’s understand evidence, & it is spooky.

By: Sinabhfuil

Sinabhfuil — Fri, 04 May 2012 08:30:00 +0000

Perhaps the reason for acceptance of such tortures is the concept that it’s something that shouldn’t be done to “American citizens”, but can be legitimately done to anyone else? Until the concept of being humane to all humans is accepted, there’s always a gap in ethics where the cruelty can get in.

By: rtb61

rtb61 — Fri, 04 May 2012 05:38:00 +0000

Need the guns, can’t lose the guns, without them you don’t have an internal enemy with whom you can justify the use of extreme force.
Take for example a guy in his underpants with a golf club, how can you execute him during a no knock, don’t know if it’s criminals or the police raid (and give a warning as you pull the trigger doesn’t count for nothing). With limited guns out there, it would be impossible to justify what is really impossible to justify.

By: davidasposted

davidasposted — Fri, 04 May 2012 03:36:00 +0000

If you think that joining ACLU, HRW, or Amnesty (note: I was an Amnesty volunteer for 4-years) will change this behavior, you’re kidding yourself.

By: Ian G

Ian G — Fri, 04 May 2012 02:00:00 +0000

I think one of the things missed here and by most of the comments is that torture isn’t the threshold, Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading treatment is.

So the even if Yoo, Bush et al. didn’t find that the United States practices rose to the level of physical torture (which would be willful indifference to suffering) they are clearly in violation of the lower standard of the Convention to which we in the U.S. are signatories. To say that torture is the standard for violation of the Convention is to accept the framing that torture apologists and criminals want you to so they escape punishment.

By: ffabian

ffabian — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:26:00 +0000

;-) That’s the reason the Austrians like to tell.

They won’t attend because they failed to qualify.

By: Shinkuhadoken

Shinkuhadoken — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:17:00 +0000

Awareness and discussion of known problems are usually the first step to action. Just sayin’.

By: J. Brad Hicks

J. Brad Hicks — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:52:00 +0000

None of this stuff is even vaguely legally controversial, and the Yoo memo is indefensible, any minimally competent law professor would have flunked it as obviously specious. Nor is the evidence in doubt, given that virtually everybody in the chain of command has confessed in public, several of them in writing, to having broken these laws.

Now, who are you planning on arresting them? In what court will they be tried? What judge will sentence them?

The UN Convention against Torture (which the US has ratified, and therefore it’s binding law in the US, on par with the Constitution itself) attempted to preempt this problem by removing prosecutorial discretion in torture allegation cases: if there is any plausible accusation of torture or of ordering torture, signatory states are required to prosecute it; if the accusation is false, let a court and a jury acquit, not a prosecutor.

Why does anybody bother to negotiate with the US, though? At no point in our history have we ever lived up to the terms of a treaty, if the treaty impaired presidential authority even in the slightest. Ask an Indian.

By: J. Brad Hicks

J. Brad Hicks — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:45:00 +0000

It’s an absolute moral principle: it’s different when we do it, because we’re the good guys, and we only do it to the bad guys. If anybody else does it, it’s wrong, because they’re not the good guys.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:36:00 +0000

Not Belarus I assume.

On a barely related note, I’m fascinated that Austria (and likely some other countries) won’t attend Euro 2012 in Ukraine because Yulia Timoshenko has some scratches on her abdomen, but had no problem at all attending the Olympics in Beijing.

By: E T

E T — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:12:00 +0000

We can all make witty comments on BB – and then actually do something. Why not join ACLU, Human Rights Watch & Amnesty International.

Unless you think just commenting here will change anything…

By: Ipo

Ipo — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:11:00 +0000

I’m still wondering which ffantastic, enlightened European country you are from.
Not Belarus I assume.

Are you under the impression that smart Americans are cool with that shit?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:04:00 +0000

The Bush administration guidelines were something like ‘no organ failure or death’.

By: RTM

RTM — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:01:00 +0000

Personally, I’d be perfectly happy with that type of torture, but that’s the point. . . you keep trying different things until you find what is torturous. There you go, it’s all part of identifying your goal and the means, whatever it may be . . . GO GWB&DC! Is it any wonder why they don’t travel internationally, and will never do so ever again?

By: RTM

RTM — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:59:00 +0000

You are winning the internet today (it’s a slow day).

By: RTM

RTM — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Repugnicons will justify anything. Even John McCain is a sellout now. TORTURE AWAY in the interest of higher profits for me and my cronies! There are no morals left on the right wing extremist path, and the mainstream Republicans are voting Democrat now (to maintain fiscal and constitutional conservativism at the “expense” of social progressivism).

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:52:00 +0000

Death or sweater vest?

DEATH!

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:47:00 +0000

Some people have serious daddy issues. I mean the wardens.

By: davidasposted

davidasposted — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:44:00 +0000

So what you’re saying is that Americans should not make generalizations about others… oh wait. (I think) I see what you did there.

By: Deidzoeb

Deidzoeb — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:37:00 +0000

It seems minor, but there’s a lot of identity caught up in how we wear our hair, whether we decide to shave it off, whether you have so little control over your body that someone else can force you to shave. Seems more humiliating for women to have their heads shaved because it’s less common in our culture.

By: hymenopterid

hymenopterid — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:30:00 +0000

Can we end solitary confinement while we’re at it? There seems to be this belief that it’s ok to make sombody’s life hell as long as you don’t physically hurt them. That’s crazy. Psychological trauma lasts longer than cuts and bruises. If you put someone in solitary confinement for even a week, they will never be the same. If you think about it, physical torture is just a tool to achieve the end result of psychological trauma.

By: ffabian

ffabian — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:17:00 +0000

All this stuff must be part of this freedom-thing the USians tell us they have and we Europeans don’t.

USians are rather quick condemning others for their oppressive government (ref.: comments BB Article: Surface-to-air missiles in London) – makes it easier to forget their own country goose-stepping toward a police state eh?

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:08:00 +0000

Were you in charge of it?

By: Ann Boyles

Ann Boyles — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:03:00 +0000

This is terrifying and sickening, and the euphemistic nature of some of these makes it even worse. Incidentally, I was curious what “forced grooming” even meant, and apparently it’s “shaving of facial hair etc.” http://lawofwar.org/interrogation_techniques.htm

By: Marja Erwin

Marja Erwin — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:52:00 +0000

No, they only get qualified impunity if they hold a position of power. If an unperson or an ordinary civilian did this to anyone except an unperson, they would face worse torture than they inflicted. If an official or police officer does it, they will probably have protections. If the president does it, it’s not illegal.

(And it’s quite clear that many people are, in the eyes of the government, unpeople, with police ignoring those who kill sex workers, with politicians calling on people to kill trans folks, and with prosecutors targeting minorities who defend themselves from would-be-murderers.)

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:46:00 +0000

We’ve seen the evidence. Nobody is getting sued for “taking one of a prisoner’s three pillows.”