Reply #21: Torture isn't defined by the person being abused.... [View All]

[Truman01]

And don't attack me because I don't agree with you. Your analogy of sodimizing my children, or beating me to death don't apply. To our knowledge none of that has happened at Gitmo and that is what we were talking about. Torture has a meaning, it isn't something to be defined in anyway that we like.

Torture is the infliction of "extreme" duress to extract information (in this case) or for sadistic reasons.

I guess the word extreme is the key. No, murder, rape, and assualt aren't torture. They are crimes. There have been no homicides that we know of at Gitmo, no rapes, no allegations of beatings that I know of. We are talking about an article where there was sensory deprivation (maybe torture) and MAYBE a forced enema. I certainly wouldn't approve of a forced enema, and IF that happened I would say it was torture. Though it's kind of hard since the Japanese gave enemas with boiling water as torture.

I'm just saying that we are overstating the case. I'm not saying we are wrong. These things shouldn't be done. Calling them torture doesn't make them worse, it distracts us into a discussion of whether the word is appropriate.

I agree these things are out of line. Can we leave it there without the histrionics of trying to make it "torture."

TC