11-02-2010, 06:59 PM
Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is:
...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
So water-boarding and genital shocks are definitely torture.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that sleep deprivation (along with wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, and deprivation of food and drink) "did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture ... [but] amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment", in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I have no problem with any of that lot.
The morality of it is somewhat subjective but I think it's trumped in any case by the simple practicality. It doesn't work reliably and, certainly when it comes to "enemy combatants," we don't want them doing it to our side, so we shouldn't do it to theirs.
...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
So water-boarding and genital shocks are definitely torture.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that sleep deprivation (along with wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, and deprivation of food and drink) "did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture ... [but] amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment", in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I have no problem with any of that lot.
The morality of it is somewhat subjective but I think it's trumped in any case by the simple practicality. It doesn't work reliably and, certainly when it comes to "enemy combatants," we don't want them doing it to our side, so we shouldn't do it to theirs.
"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."