Depends What Your Definition of Torture Is
From Newsweek, an eye-opener:
What was approved*
In December 2002, Rumsfeld tentatively approved 16 interrogation techniques for use with “uncooperative” detainees. In April 2003, he rejected much of the December list but noted that if officials wanted to use unapproved methods, they could ask his permission.
Approved Dec. 2002; ‘unapproved’ April 2003
Prolonged standing
Removal of detainees’ clothing
Sensory deprivation
Hooding during questioning
Prolonged interrogations
Using detainee phobias (e.g., dogs) to induce stress
Shaving of beards
Approved Dec. 2002 or April 2003
Good cop/bad cop
Rapid-fire questioning
Grabbing, poking or pushing
Sleep adjustment
Exposing detainee to an unpleasant smell
Never approved
Exposure to cold weather or water
Face slap or stomach slap
“Waterboarding”: use of towel and dripping water to induce misperception of suffocation†
Threat of death to detainees or relatives
Sleep deprivation
*by Rumsfeld
So you can’t shave their ratty-a$$ beards, but you CAN make them sniff Salmon Soda? I’d crack, too. And I love how no one in the MSM feels like they have to be polite and use Pres. or Sec. before an official’s name ~ it’s just Rumsfeld, et al.
Military Thingies | Mr. Bingley | 
November 16, 2005 9:38 am
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I’m still waiting for the “torture by babe in t-shirt and thong” memorandum.
Bing, I hope you are not talking about that England female-thingie that got convicted……
I fail to see how that England thing fits any of the terms I put between quotation marks.
At all.
Except for the word torture.
Oh come on now, she was sorta cute in that she’s my second cousin twice removed from the holler on the other side of the mountain kinda way. Before she got pregnant. That was hard for me to type and certainly not with a straight face…
If Newsweek could show me where any of those techniques cause “severe pain” or if they could show me where any of those techniques were applied to people who actually qualify for protected status as POW’s I might be sympathetic. They are deliberately confusing coercion with torture. And they are saying that people who fight using tactics explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions are entitled to their protections. It’s ridiculous.
Changing the terms of the debate and intentionally conflating unlike things? Yeah, that sounds like Newsweek.
Don’t we see a lot of those on Law and Order? Certainly good cop, bad cop,rapid fire questions and an jab in the chest every now and then. Why are these people so horrified? Shaving a beard is torture? Please. I guess making them bathe is inhuman too.