US Detainee Debate Complicated by Elusive Definition of Torture

[LiberalAndProud]

By Gary Thomas
Washington
16 December 2005
-snip-
But defining just what constitutes torture is elusive. Everyone agrees that harsh physical abuse, such as beating or tearing out fingernails, is torture. But there is a wide range of other techniques available that fall into what former Army interrogator Mike Ritz calls a "grey area."
"Until there's a true definition of torture, then I think it does become impossible to say that a person doesn't do it. Because what's my torture is not your torture, and it's very different for each person," said Mr. Ritz. "I don't know how you come to a general consensus over that. The Geneva Conventions seem to be just vague enough to where you can get away with most anything."

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-12-16-voa47.cfm

[Eric J in MN]

1. Everyone doesn't agree on that.

Jay Bybee wrote a memo he gave to Alberto Gonazales that to be torture, it has to be as painful as organ failure.

George W. Bush then appointed Bybee for life to a federal court.

[Kagemusha]

2. They were gonna use the army field manual on interrogations

but then the Army rewrote it, I heard.

So a rolling definition of torture.

[fasttense]

3. This VOA source is a piece of crap.

Torture is torture, like the judged said when he was trying to define pornography, "I know it when I see it." It is very simple, except to people who are trying to define it narrowly enough to get by with torturing prisoners. There is no "grey area". No one seemed to have problems defining it until brush came along and made himself dictator of the United States of America.

I can't believe this idiot writer on VOA, "Because what's my torture is not your torture, and it's very different for each person." Unless you are a certified masochist, torture is very simple and easily identified.