A Village Idiot's Guide to Torture

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

Poor George just wants CLARIFICATION! He needs to know EXACTLY what conflicts with the Geneva Conventions, because they're just so gosh darn , you know . . . vague!

George really struggles with Article III -

What constitutes "Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment"

Maybe he would understand it better in a different context---

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"

What EXACTLY are trespasses? In other versions of this prayer "trespasses" has been "wrongs" and even "debts". So what the heck are they talking about anyway?

In both instances, George, there is no need to define the undefinable. We all know it when we see it. We all know when we have sinned, or been inhumane, or cruel or inhuman. We can't possibly lay out every single instance of this - but we know it when we see it.

Although, this may be harder to understand if one enjoyed blowing up frogs as a youngster.

[silverweb]

1. It's an opening to play word games.

He wants specifics so that he and his cohorts can conveniently leave out their favorite methods of torture/degradation.

In their legalistically twisted, semantics game-playing view, if something is not specifically prohibited, it will be considered "legal" and all they have to do is fuck with words to get away with whatever they want.

They're so goddamned transparent.

:grr:

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. It's foolish. No one attempts to codify every single thing that

constitutes assault, for instance. It's just not possible. How could anyone codify torture? This is why modern societies have rejected it outright.

[lapfog_1]

3. I wonder where being chained naked by the neck to

a concrete floor with loud music and bright lights for days and days on end, rolling around in your own
excrement... I wonder where that fits in the "personal dignity, humiliation, and degrading treatment" scale.

All of these wing nuts that are appearing on the cable shows today, carrying the water for a complete asshole,
I wonder how they would feel if this was done to them.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. If only they could really be real authorities and experience

Abu Grahaib and Guantanamo as others have, with their own commentaries substituting for the loud music. I wonder if Rush might think then, that it rises above the level of "fraternity pranks"

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. what are you referring to?

There have been real deaths of detainees in American custody. Would that rate at least a . . .6?

I'm thinking you took my subject line too literally.

[lapfog_1]

7. hmmmm, methinks you will enjoy a brief stay here

but welcome to DU anyway.

So, if that's a "1" on the torture scale, what about being strapped to a board and repeatedly dunked
in a tank of water until you are about to die from drowning?

That's the "water boarding" that being talked about.

Now, the closest I've ever come in my life to someone drowning in my presence was when I was a dive instructor,
a girl on my boat jumped in before she or her dive buddy checked her equipment. Air not turned on. BC
not inflated. Sank like a rock. I dived in after her and, barely, got an arm around her and punched my
BC to get us to the surface, and tried to give her my octopus. I've never, ever, in my life, seen anyone
so distressed and panicky. She almost fought me off in her panic. I got her back onto the boat, and she
spent the next hour crying and screaming at her boyfriend/dive buddy.

I'm guessing that water boarding is a lot like that... and I think that it would be torture. At least a 6 or
7 on the scale, right behind being boiled alive and/or electrocuted ala Abu Ghraib.

Plus, I don't think you get any GOOD information from torturing someone. They will say anything if they think
it will make you stop. Truth, fiction, anything. Especially if its something they think you want to hear.

[annabanana]

9. You're volunteering?. . . . n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. Whereas your post rates a solid 10.

[texpatriot2004]

8. Great Title nm

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

10. Thanks! I'm working up a proposal for a No Presidents Left Behind Series

with Scholastic Books and this could be Volume 1

[texpatriot2004]

11. Indeed, I think it could. I think you are on your way ;-) nm

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

13. I would love to ask that idiot Tony Snow who knows not whereof he speaks-

why the Geneva convention is any different than the Lord's Prayer,or ANY (make that all) criminal law which does not ever attempt to exactly define what does and does not break the law.

When making laws, or writing contracts, there is a conscious effort made not to be TOO specific, because sometimes people (like Bush and Tony Snow) would try to use that to their advantage by implying that because something was not SPECIFICALLY mentioned than it must be alright - i.e -

You write a law that says it is wrong to burn someone with a cigarette. Does that means that someone who burns someone else with a cigar, a cigarillo, a candy cigarette, a piece of charcoal, a coat hanger, etc. has a defense because it is not specifically mentioned in the law? Most laws and conventions are written to be non-specific for this very reason.