Funferal

What is torture, Bob?

The BBC report that several British citizens who had been held capitve at Guantanamo are now reporting abuses that took place there, and it seems Australians may be doing likewise. It’s no wonder the U.S. was so reluctant to release them. Of course, the details were really already known, but the general public, and the mainstream media, weren’t paying attention then – and abstract reports of ‘psychological techniques for softening up people for interrogation’ just doesn’t worry the average person. Of course, in the case of the details which have now emerged, it appears that physical and psychological torture doesn’t worry some politicians. According to the Center for American Progress daily report:

Asked why he refused to acknowledge the Geneva Convention in Iraq had been violated, Rumsfeld said: “I think that everyone has to make those judgments themselves because if you think about it, Geneva doesn’t say what you do when you get up in the morning…Some will say, well, I think it’s terrific except that in my view it is mental torture to do something that is inconvenient in a certain way for a detainee.  Like standing up for a long period or some other thing that someone else might say is not, uh, in any way abusive or – or harmful.  And, uh, there’s no way to get everybody to agree to all that because when Geneva was prepared and agreed upon, it didn’t go to that level of detail.”