Is this torture? The Dumb North African (formerly Mind Bleed) thinks so.
Whether to use torture on prisoners is a question that we in America have not addressed. Is it permissible to destroy one man to save hundreds or maybe thousands of lives? These are not citizens so they do not have the protections guarantied by the constitution. The Geneva convention does not protect them, they are not affiliated with any country and certainly don’t reciprocate when they capture our military or civilians. Psychological or physical interrogation methods exist at various levels, interrogation methods that our police departments use have been described as “torture”. Many would find the scene described by Saar less onerous than boiling of body parts. This needs to be addressed by congress. How much do we value basic human rights against the security of our country? What methods are we willing to use and at what level? If we decide to place limits on interrogations then we can’t be sending our prisoners to other countries that will exceed those limits, that gains us no credibility.
3 comments:
I didn't specifically say I thought it was torture - but, come on, we both know world opinion will think it is.
The reason I brought this up was to highlight that for the American PR machine to work, it needs to address activities such as this. With the US lambasting other countries for torture while this sort of thing happens under its own nose, how is this going to boost credibility for a very unpopular war?
To a devout Muslim maybe this is psychological torture. Forgive me for saying you thought it was torture, I do concede your point that if anything it makes us look hypocritical as far as human rights go.
The US has no PR branch. The current administration will try and put its spin on something, the Army if its involved, the CIA probably wont say anything. But the party not in power will criticize like hell, those countries that currently see themselves as competitors will pile on and our enemies will spew forth whatever propaganda they feel their people will believe. It’s a no win scenario.
There was supposed to be a woman of Egyptian origin spearheading a Bush intiative to reconcile US/ME differences. That smells like PR to me, and it looks like she isn't doing much. I mean, a few days after I posted this and the violence has escalated.
I'm Muslim - I know this stuff backwards: there will be people who have a vested interest in spurring this against the US. Something has to be done quick.
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