What Actually Constitutes Torture?

Reading Andrew Sullivan once again going on about war criminals and Christianists in the White House, oh my!! But this bit below by him is particularly appropriate:

A couple of things need to be stressed, because I've learned the hard way that intelligent people simply refuse to absorb what is staring them in the face, when what is staring them in the face is so staggering:

We know, Andrew. We know. We've been watching you unravel for well over a year. Now please make it stop. I'll talk.

Comments

[Tom]

A couple of things need to be stressed, because I've learned the hard way that intelligent people simply refuse to absorb what is staring them in the face, when what is staring them in the face is so staggering:

I know you are making fun about this. What I would like to know is how can the systematic looting of our treasury be funny at all? How can you folks possibly still support the enterprise currently squatting in our White house? What on earth could make you still worship these people? They don't like you, they don't like the planet, they will be gone very soon asn who then are you going to worship? To follow this group over a cliff is something I would expect from the 27%r club. Pathetic losers...

[Purple Avenger]

Listening to Sullivan is torture.

[daveinboca]

Hey, Tom, what about the less than 27%ers? What kind of national death wish do you prefer?

Honestly, these BDS types are simply unable to take an extremely complex situation like Iraq and look at it in any other manner than childish cartoons.

Sullivan used to carp endlessly about Robert Fisk and a few other Brits who'd gone way round the bend. Now he's out there with them & he should ask Orwell, who famously said that the truth is hardest to see when it's staring you in the face.

Sullivan has been turned by the chattering airhead intelligentsia sirens of Manhattan, even though he perches in Provincetown with his depraved buddy-pals. Or maybe he's got a Glenn Greenwald-type boyfriend he's trying to please.

[Lala]

It's the gay marriage thing with him.

I used to read him daily but I guess it must be at least three years since I've bothered to go to his site.

[seekeronos]

Update:

Bush = 32%

Dhimmicrat Congress = 20%

So I guess y'all 20%ers just might be worse off, eh?

[Jamelle]

I have an idea.

Hang with me now, because it's a difficult one.

How about instead of attacking Andrew Sullivan as a person, you address what he's saying? You may not like it, but there's a legitimate case to be made for the assertion that the United States is engaging in torture. Instead of just dismissing people who make that case, it would be nice if you tried to offer an alternative case.

[rwilymz]

"there's a legitimate case to be made for the assertion that the United States is engaging in torture"

No, actually, there's not.

The folks who are authorized to define torture is ... ... the United States. Not some wag desiring to criticize the US because the "wrong guy" is in charge... not some NGO[s] with an agenda to push and donations to collect.

[nowingker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know if anal rape, burning with cigarettes and having your eyes gouged out are legally considered "harsh interrogation techniques" then they're not torture.

Cold comfort for the person being 'harshly interrogated' in conditions that if done to an American would magically become 'torture'

[jj]

winkiedink, are you back? I think your two boys in Goose Creek, SC are more than just young men playing with firecrackers. Wouldn't you agree?

And again, you are wrong, as burning with cigarettes, rape and mutilation are not legal interrogation techniques. Anyone guilty of those crimes are guilty of assault and battery. Just so you know.

[nowingker]

I would agree that ONE of the Goose Creek boys appears to be actively involved in supporting terrorism if reports that he made a video to help out jihadists in creating remote control bombs are true. I don't see anything on the second guy that makes me thinke he's a terrorist or anything other than an arab in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Rwilymz's point is that 'torture' is what the country defines it as and that there is no objective, global, moral standard as to what defines torture, so whatever the US says isn't torture in his view isn't torture....meaning that IF the US said burning with cigarettes, mutilation and rape weren't torture but were authorized techniques then they WOULD NOT BE TORTURE, because the law said so.

[rwilymz]

That's correct.

IntLaw on the subject [mostly the GenCons] prohibit torture, but they don't define it.

They say, essentially, "you can't do 'X', but we'll leave up to you what 'X' is".

It was either that or not have torture banned.

For the simple reason that no nation at the time was willing to allow an extra-national group of busybodies with "swell intentions" to co-opt their sovereignty. And still aren't.

Oh, sure, there's groups within nations, political outsiders and activists, who claim to support an internationalism of a nation's laws, but once they get in power, it's stunning how quickly they revert back to bald nationalism: "Ain't nobody telling me what this country is allowed to do; ***I*** do that!"

So, fine: "You can't do 'X', but each nation defines 'X' for themselves."

And if that weren't silly enough, there isn't really any good way to enforce a nation's own 'X' on it from the outside; the nation has to enforce 'X' on itself. And of the hundred-some-odd nations on the planet only a handful have been willing to even **attempt** to do that, and the US is one of them.

France does far worse than the US when playing power-broker in west Africa and they have yet to respond to the whining of the humanitarians over their outrages. Ref: Cote d'Ivorie. The US has actually sentenced a few guards to the brig and ruined the lives of several more for Abu Ghraib.

No matter the provokation, there is no binding international enforcement mechanism available. Not even the "international criminal court" that several yutzes will inevitably bring up. "You sign the treaty, you're bound to their jurisdiction!!"

Not even close. You're bound to their jurisdiction if you choose to be. Once you're the one to get arrested, would you choose to be?

Don't be an r-tard. Of course not.

The US is one of the few nations to see the ICC for what it is: an exercise in self-righteous busy-bodiry.

...and people accuse the US of being busy bodies! What the hell is the UN and ICC? Busy-bodies by committee. Jesus christ and a half.

The only way international outrage can be enforced upon nations who are being systematically rude is to take them to war, kick their ass, grab their leaders by the scruff of their necks and *force* them to sit down and take the legal punishment that having a war couldn't impose upon them.

Like Nazis at Nuremburg; like Slobo at The Hague.

Other than that, it's masturbatory pseudo-"enlightenment".

[nowingker]

I guess you would agree then that the holocaust wasn't really much of a problem since it was all done legally, eh?

Do you really, honestly believe that there aren't any univeral moral standards that apply to human beings regardless of their culture or circumstance such as rape or murdering children?

[rwilymz]

"Do you really, honestly believe that there aren't any univeral moral standards that apply to human beings regardless of their culture or circumstance such as rape or murdering children?"

What I *believe* has no bearing on the matter.

The only thing that has any bearing is what can be done about it.

I'm simply telling you -- now and before -- **what** it is. I haven't assigned any valuation to it. My opinion of it is immaterial.

If you want to agitate for something other than what is, that's up to you. But these are the pitfalls you will face.

You will *not* get nations to agree to some "universal morality" position by persuasion; some, because they simply dispute your view of "universal morality", others because they want to run amok. ...and possibly a few because they think wasting time/effort/energy on such a sky-pie endeavor is a phenomenal waste of time that they won't participate.

The only other option is force ... and that would seem to run afoul of a generalized consensus of a "universally moral" manner of attaining a common good.

"Law" is only as good as the ability [or willingness] to enforce it. There is simply no ability to enforce "universal morality" on unwilling nations. The individuals who attempted to formalize these things understood that.

[nowingker]

Of course what you believe is important.

Either you believe that 'just following orders' is appropriate justification for committing any kind of atrocity that is legally sanctioned or you don't. Either you believe that some things are always atrocities no matter who does them, for what reason or under what legal justification or you don't. Either you would torture someone as long as it was legal or you wouldn't.

Clearly, nothing can be done about atrocities if your position is that by definition no act can be an atrocity if it was done legally.

Forgetting about a global love in, here in the United States, I believe that if the 'harsh interrogation' tactics were used on an American they would be considered torture, therefore, by the prevailing moral standard of THIS country, what we are doing IS torture by our own moral code whether the government admits it or not or gives it a name other than 'government sanctioned legal torture'

[rwilymz]

"Of course what you believe is important."

To whom and for what purpose? To the world at large and for understanding the subject? Not even a farthing's worth.

What I believe is important to me, my family, my children who [for the time being] are required to acknoeldge and learn my beliefs ["if you can't make your kids do what you want, why have them?" - Bill Cosby]

"Either you believe that 'just following orders' is appropriate justification for committing any kind of atrocity that is legally sanctioned or you don't."

This is far too philosophical with no real answers. Soldiers are taught blind obedience and not infrequently punished for failure, and then are punished after the fact for refusing to use personal descretion in circumstances they neither created nor controlled, but simply complied with because their immediate alternative was death.

That is not fair.

You want to punish Hitler and Goebbels for giving dastardly orders? Fine. Can't Find Hitler and Goebbels because they offed themselves? Don't take it out on the bottom rung.

"Either you believe that some things are always atrocities no matter who does them, for what reason or under what legal justification or you don't."

I think infibulation is barbaric and cruel. Does this satisfy you?

Now. What can I do about it? Ans: nothing. Oh, I suppose I could refuse to sign my daughters up for it. Yay!! two victories in the worldwide campaign against female genital mutilation!! [psssst! they weren't in the target group anyway; hollow victory, damned near meaningless in fact]

Net effect? bupkus.

"Either you would torture someone as long as it was legal or you wouldn't."

But what *IS* torture?

As some wag above said: reading Andrew Sullivan is torture. To him it might very well be. I can't stand John Steinbeck or Cardinals fans. What right do I have to impose my views of torture onto anyone else?

What right does anyone else have to impose their own?

Isn't that what you're asking backhanded permission to do?

"Clearly, nothing can be done about atrocities if your position is that by definition no act can be an atrocity if it was done legally."

All legal arguments end up being circular. 'X' is unconstitutional. Sez who? the USSC. And why does that make a difference? because they're defined as the only ones who can define "unconstitutional". They are the ones named god when someone died. That's they way it works.

That's the way it works in other jurisdictions as well. Someone has been given the ultimate authority to set definitions. In many cases, someoneS.

"I believe that if the 'harsh interrogation' tactics were used on an American they would be considered torture, therefore, by the prevailing moral standard of THIS country"

But your beliefs aren't given the authority to make those definitions. Just like mine aren't. Which is why I didn't give my beliefs. They are irrelevant.

Further, the US is obliged to act in multiple jurisdictions, one being national, and another being international. What we define for ourselves often has no bearing on what we've defined for our interaction in the world.

...yes: prisoners at Gitmo do not get US civil rights. That's exactly what that means.

[Chris]

Andrew's been unraveling for much longer than a year, Dan. His descent into madness can be traced directly to the third week of January, 2004. That was Bush's SOTU speech where he said, in response to (I believe Mass. SSC) judicial usurpation of the consent of the governed, that he'd support a constitutional amendment to define marriage. Sully has been nutso ever since.

[seekeronos]

"--- You want to punish Hitler and Goebbels for giving dastardly orders? Fine. Can't Find Hitler and Goebbels because they offed themselves? Don't take it out on the bottom rung. ---"

But the flip side of it is... if they (the Allied occupation forces) can't find their Hitler or Goebbels... then Herr Oberst Fruchtenwerfer and Feldwebel Wachtturmstander and a couple-three score of their "Güter Komeraden" will make handy stand ins for them, and nobody on the Allied side will blink when they get it in the neck.

"Vae Victis": Woe to the defeated.

[Fred Belot]

"'Vae Victis': Woe to the defeated."

On the money, seek. Some interesting numbers are here:

http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions

The population of U.S. Muslims doubled from 1990 to 2000 and is on track to double again (through 2004) by 2010. Of course they are all peaceful Americans who love our free Western ways. Ask Mary nowinkie, she'll tell you.

But what if just a few are like some of their brothers and sisters in Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, etc.? What if a small percentage are anxious to get to heaven by killing infidels? Why then we would have a problem like the Israelis have, never knowing when or where we might be blown up. I don't accept that as a way for me and mine to live. In fact I would rather do something that might kill me or cause me to participate in killing others than live that way.

Now the gentleman from Iran who recently graced the halls of Columbia wants us to move Israel from its present locale to Alaska, well the inhabitants really. He seems to have a lot of other smart ideas that are totally incompatible with how we want reality to be.

He is very busily priming up the Iranians for war. Seems to me we need to accept that a very large war is on its way and we had better get ready for it. Vae victis.