Reply #56: MEMO: Defining Torture: Russian Roulette, Yes. Mind-Altering Drugs, Maybe.

[L. Coyote]

WORD FOR WORD
Defining Torture: Russian Roulette, Yes. Mind-Altering Drugs, Maybe.

By KATE ZERNIKE
The New York Times
June 27, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/27/weekinreview/27word.html

If all the memos released by the White House last week in response to the prison abuse scandal in Iraq, none have been more incendiary than the so-called torture memo, dated Aug. 1, 2002, and written by Jay S. Bybee, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department.

The department and the White House have distanced themselves from the document. But the memorandum's antiseptic discussion of the definition of torture is likely to continue to fuel the debate. Following are a few excerpts.
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The memo starts by explaining that some acts may be "cruel, inhuman or degrading" but not constitute torture ..............