Waterboarding is torture?
A friend posted on this topic. I consider waterboarding to be borderline, but torture. That said, there are some definitional problems that I've been having recently with the media and anti-torture advocacy groups.
As a general rule, torture is a subset of cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel and unusual punishment includes a lot of things that are far cry from torture. I've found that torture has been defined overly broadly by many modern sources; I believe that torture implies at a minimum severe physical pain or severe psychological trauma.
As an example from Abu Ghraib, parading someone around naked and posing them for pictures is cruel and unusual. It is not torture. This is torture. Equating the two takes meaning out of the word torture, which is something so horrific we should never allow it to occur. In my book, most of what occurred at Abu Ghraib should involve serious prisons sentences. The punishment for torture should involve throwing away the key at a minimum.
In the same way, people who compare Nazi concentration camps and Soviet gulags with Guantanamo bay cheapen some of the most horrific events of the 20th century in the comparison. There are many facilities which exist in the world today which are reasonable comparisons with concentration camps and gulags. None of them are run by the US government.
If you disagree with that, read the statements from reporters who have been to Gitmo and reported on it. A facility where the Red Cross is given access to the facility and detainees is not even remotely equivalent to a concentration camp run by Himmler.
That said, Gitmo needs to be dealt with. There needs to be a fair legal system with checks and balances. That system can be a military court system (as has been used for battlefield detainees throughout US history), but if so, it needs to allow defense lawyers and appeals.
As a general rule, torture is a subset of cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel and unusual punishment includes a lot of things that are far cry from torture. I've found that torture has been defined overly broadly by many modern sources; I believe that torture implies at a minimum severe physical pain or severe psychological trauma.
As an example from Abu Ghraib, parading someone around naked and posing them for pictures is cruel and unusual. It is not torture. This is torture. Equating the two takes meaning out of the word torture, which is something so horrific we should never allow it to occur. In my book, most of what occurred at Abu Ghraib should involve serious prisons sentences. The punishment for torture should involve throwing away the key at a minimum.
In the same way, people who compare Nazi concentration camps and Soviet gulags with Guantanamo bay cheapen some of the most horrific events of the 20th century in the comparison. There are many facilities which exist in the world today which are reasonable comparisons with concentration camps and gulags. None of them are run by the US government.
If you disagree with that, read the statements from reporters who have been to Gitmo and reported on it. A facility where the Red Cross is given access to the facility and detainees is not even remotely equivalent to a concentration camp run by Himmler.
That said, Gitmo needs to be dealt with. There needs to be a fair legal system with checks and balances. That system can be a military court system (as has been used for battlefield detainees throughout US history), but if so, it needs to allow defense lawyers and appeals.