Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

I said to someone once before that it was all well and good denouncing torture, but unless you define torture, you're still in the woods. For some reason I came off sounding like a torture proponent...

So the worrying thing is indeed that while everyone's paying lip service to the denouncement of torture, it's being busily redefined, e.g. 'Risking heart failure'. Sounds like a lot of pretty intense interrogation can occur up until that point to me.

But, hey, it's alright because the victims are suspected terrorists, and we all know their guilt will be demonstrated once evidence has been extracted from them.

Those suspected of crimes against society must therefore, for the safety of society, be handled outside the judicial system.

I seem to recall a similar situation not so long ago when a nation was persuaded that class of people represented such a threat to society that they needed to be removed and were no longer subject to the same privileges as the rest of its citizens.

I thought the US taught its kids to separate 'suspicion' from 'guilt' by pointing out the travesty of the Salem witch trials, etc.

I suspect that re-defining torture was the obvious step for the neo-cons once the program to outsource it was exposed for all to see.

The best educational remedy I can think of would be to point out to people that human rights aren't some kind of 'loyalty reward' granted to upstanding members of society, but something that upstanding members of society give to the most nefarious, wicked, and incorrigible psychopaths that give the human species a bad name.

Because, as incredible as it may seem, even some of those found guilty, let alone those found suspicious, are actually innocent.

Those who consider the loss of a few innocent lives a tolerable sacrifice in pursuit of a higher purpose are precisely the kind of people we're up against.

Humans evidently do not evolve. The question is: is a constitutional democracy up to the task of keeping the human talent for ultraviolence in check, or do we need to evolve it into something better?

"...unless you define torture, you're still in the woods...."

That's the current American lawyer's reaction (too often from the left, as well as the right): nothing is covered unless it is specified to the nth degree. That any tiny variation has the same effect is immaterial: "No needles under fingernails? Of course that's illegal, but it doesn't say no *sterilized* needles under fingernails! If they'd wanted to define that as torture, they would have said so!"

Two results of this kind of quibbling are, more work for courts, and a growing sense that constitutional guarantees are so vague as to be practically meaningless, as are similar broadly-written proscriptions in the Geneva accords.

Fall back on intent and the generally-accepted meaning of words? In a court of law? Perish the thought!

"...unless you define torture, you're still in the woods...."

That's the current American lawyer's reaction (too often from the left, as well as the right): nothing is covered unless it is specified to the nth degree. That any tiny variation has the same effect is immaterial: "No needles under fingernails? Of course that's illegal, but it doesn't say no *sterilized* needles under fingernails! If they'd wanted to define that as torture, they would have said so!"

Two results of this kind of quibbling are, more work for courts, and a growing sense that constitutional guarantees are so vague as to be practically meaningless, as are similar broadly-written proscriptions in the Geneva accords.

Fall back on intent and the generally-accepted meaning of words? In a court of law? Perish the thought!

A definition of torture doesn't have to be an exhaustive document containing every possible variation.

My point about the need to define torture, if anything, is a protest against those who would seek to give the definition precision such that exclusions may be inferred.

There must be a simple definition that leaves no one in any doubt as to the difference between spartan living conditions and verbally intense interrogation and torture.

However, it seems that the powers that be have decided that torture is useful but that they wouldn't do anything they'd be unhappy to be done to their own soldiers. Well, this could be implemented as a safeguard.

For example, "In any interrogation the interrogator must submit themselves to precisely the same conditions as the person being interrogated, e.g. sleep deprivation, noise, etc."

Alternatively, a paid volunteer indistinguishable and unknown to staff, will accompany the defendant at all times and be subjected to the same treatment. Overstepping the mark occurs when the volunteer decides it's not worth the money.

Let no-one put another to the test that does not undergo it themselves.

You're welcome, David!