CNN as "The Enabler"..."Legal definitions of torture not black and white"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

...while the sub-header is enough to make you gag...

"Defining torture isn't always an easy task."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/05/10/torture.legal.ap/index.html

Here's some true journalistic genius in action:

"...key judgment calls are often left up to individuals who may make spot decisions, according to Army documents. Sometimes, the right calls are made. Sometimes, they're not."

"The Army has said interrogators are trained to use techniques considered less coercive, such as trying to play on detainees' fears or despair. They could also befriend a chain smoker with cigarettes, or alternatively deprive the prisoner of them, for example."

The article states that "During a 16-week training course at Fort Huachuca," interrogators are trained to ask themselves two questions:

"1). Would a reasonable person feel their rights are being violated?


2). If the actions were against American prisoners of war, would I think the actions violated international or U.S. law?"

[MadinMD]

1. Well, its true

As with a lot of things in law, it's not really black and white, there are grey areas and questions.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

3. Yes, but...

...there's sort of a built-in agenda on this one. Ruling out torture is one thing, but it begs the question "if a naked prisoner surrounded by three soldiers and two snarling attack dogs ISN'T torture, what is it?"

The "gray areas," I think are being used to stall for time while the administration decides "what to call" these events.

By the way, have you received your official DU welcome yet?

If not, WELCOME!

:toast:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

18. The Dude was Bitten by the dogs, by the way. EOM

[DenverDem]

4. We are not talking legalities, here.

We are talking about national ethics, or our current complete lack thereof.

There is no justification, legal or otherwise, for any of the shit going down over there.

[MadinMD]

7. Actually

We are talking legalities here. That's exactly what the article was about, the legalities of torture.

I wholeheartedly agree that this is reprehensible and disgusting, but in the end, is it legally classifiable as torture? We don't know becuase there is no bright line rule.

[DenverDem]

10. So if this is not legally torture, it is acceptable?

Framing the debate as to legal definitions will only worsen the climate of insanity that would justify these actions.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

12. That was pretty much my question

Absolutely, the article addresses the challenges of legally defining "torture."

But as the late, great, Frank Zappa (as "The Central Scruitinizer") once said, "Who gives a f**k anyway?"

I posted the article as the result of what I found to be the absurdity behind SO MUCH time being wasted in the "is it torture or a frat hazing" debate.

Giving the actions and "photojournalistic record" that followed, a "legal definition" will satisfy the people who like to have a "legal definition," and no one else.

You hit the nail on the head...the "climate of insanity" is what REALLY needs to be addressed.

[MadinMD]

16. No, it's not acceptable

But the fact is it is near impossible to determine what is and is not torture by the reasonable person standard.

CNN isn't working as shills for the bush administration here, they're not being a kooky right wing soap box, they're simply telling you how it is. Torture isn't defined very easily. Period. End of story. There is no tinfoil hat wearing needed. Sometimes a story is just a story, and really, I find it quite interesting.

I don't have any problem with CNN reporting on this.

Sometimes the craziness of the DU is unbelieveable.

[DenverDem]

17. The fact that "legality" is the issue is framing the debate

in such a way as to allow these techniques to be justifiable in the collective conscience.

That CNN is focusing on this is enabling this framing. That is bushler shilling if there ever was any.

Sometimes people's lack of critical discernment is unbelievable.

[Mandate My Ass]

20. Precisely

Even a modicum of background knowledge on Arab culture and Islamic law will tell you this treatment was nothing short of an atrocity.

It smacks of arrogance and ethnocentricity to think we can pull out a legal textbook and determine whether or not what was done to these people fell within an acceptable gray area where we can give our GIs the benefit of the doubt. There is not an iota of doubt in the Arab world that this was indeed torture, but what do those uneducated heathens know? :eyes:

[Bandit]

5. Kind of how the judge defined obscenity.

"I may not be able to define it but I know it when I see it"

[Sandpiper]

2. Journalists should avoid talking in lawyer-speak

The legal definition of almost everything isn't black and white.

The legal definition of murder isn't black and white.

[rkc3]

6. Just remember...

When this whole fucking war started, our fearless leader made it clear America was on high moral ground and had every right to go into Iraq and liberate the people from Saddam's tyrrany. He promised these people they would be treated with respect and dignity.

Whether this treatment is correctly called torture, abuse, or just "softening", it is beneath the standard set forth by our dictator in chief.

Combine this with the fact that many of the people doing the "softening" are contract employees, you begin to wonder about the pictures that aren't being shown or the stories that aren't being told.

I can't understand how anyone in the media could apologize for this treatment.

[Bridget Burke]

8. What a great "reality" project for the media!

Have some big, scary guys (& girls) drop by the studio & start "testing" the pundits. Strip them naked, toss them in dark rooms for a while (janitors' closets?), pile them together in particular positions & set dogs on them. (They can't be threatened with death--but their jobs could hang in the balance!)

Each time the "abuse" ratchets up, the media folk should be questioned: Is this torture? Or just a fraternity prank?

I'm sure we'd get some interesting responses. This could lead to some high-rating, long-running TV--sort of like those "Survivor" shows.

[MadHound]

9. Pure, unmitigated horseshit, that's all this is

A vain attempt at damage control and spin. The agony and suffering exhibited by one photo alone is proof of torture in and of itself.

The one pic of the man in the black hood, with wires attached and standing on a box, that my friend is the picture of torture in action.
This man fully believed what his captors told him, that if he moved, or fell off the box, or let his arms down, he would received a violent electric shock. So here is the poor soul, arms akimbo, trying not to move. Pain, serious pain in that picture. Try it yourself if you don't believe me. See if you can keep your arms outstretched for fifteen minutes, for thirty. Feel the burn as your muscles build up lactic acid, feel the pain as you push these muscles past their limits, do it for forty five, maybe sixty minutes, as this poor soul did, held in place by fear and adrenalin. Then tell me that isn't torture.

Besides, torture isn't only physical, it is also defined as mental. And these people were assuredly mentally tortured. In a culture that is in many ways more puritan than ours, public nudity would be an agony amongst these people, especially since they knew they were being paraded about sans clothes in front of enemy women. On top of that, being forced to simulate sex acts would cause even more anguish and mental torture.

And to top it all off, apparently there are pictures of both rape and murder. Enough said people, don't buy the spin, don't fall for the legalistic quibblings of administration apologists, this is torture.

[Lars39]

11. If we ever see our way out of this mess, I want CNN dissolved.

I won't accept just the head honchos being held liable. The rot is too deep.

[gratuitous]

13. So CNN, let me shove a fluorescent light tube up your collective rectum

While a few dozen of my best and closest friends stand armed to the teeth around you in a place where there are no cameras, nobody within screaming distance, and no scruples to be found anywhere. Let's further assume that I can kill you without fearing reprisals, and as the prongs on the fluorescent tube perforate your bowel and you can feel the shit seeping into your abdominal cavity, we'll have a nice, calm, rational discussion about whether this constitutes torture or not.

Deal?

[diamond14]

14. America: STAND UP now and say NO to bush* POW sex-torture

snuff operation....say NO to bush* approved murder, sex-torture, rape, sodomizing young boys, extortion and more...say NO America...stand up and say NO bush*...we reject your crap...get out of OUR white house now...

[maggrwaggr]

15. Hm, I'd say if looking at the pictures makes you want to hurl

then it just might be "torture"

[rucky]

19. Was that from Rick James' attorney? n/t