“Or, the shame of cheapening and eventually trashing perfectly good words, eventually causing them to become worthless and unusable.”
The Belmont Club’s Wretchard discusses a post from The Smoking Gun (careful, some images therein may be crude and shocking) describing the content of documents allegedly recently captured from al-qaeda in Iraq. The problem with the subject matter is that in former years it could have reasonably be called a “torture manual”. But alas, that term no longer seems to work.
The world is apparently no longer interested in hearing about “torture”, probably because we dirty rotten Yanks are hands down the acknowledged leaders at “torturing” large quantities of prisoners taken in warfare, and the topic is no longer of international interest – unless, of course, more US troops are thought to be caught up in it again. Then it becomes important to discuss.
The problem is quite simple. The rest of us permitted the warm-hearted fuzzy thinkers of the world to misuse and misapply a perfectly good word, “torture”. They were describing – for the most part – torment or humiliation, but were overstating the case – as seems to be the wont of certain overly-liberal wonks – as if what was occurring was actually harming or maybe even permanently disfiguring the subjects of the interrogations and so-called “torture”. I hold that in all but a few rare cases, it wasn’t.
Was it fun to undergo? No! Was it nice and polite? No! Was it reasonably applied? Can’t tell! Has it worked? Probably pretty well! Was it actually “torture”? With few exceptions, No!
The question I have for my liberal friends – the same ones who “tsked, tsked” over Abu Ghraib prison and the camp at Guantanamo Bay – how are they going to respond to (and classify) what is being done by AQ per the “manuals” referenced in The Smoking Gun ? What should they (or we) call that level of interrogation? Or do they even care?
Looking up the word “maim” in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006, shows the following synonyms and explanations:
“—1. Maim, lacerate, mangle, mutilate indicate the infliction of painful and severe injuries on the body. To maim is to injure by giving a disabling wound, or by depriving a person of one or more members or their use: maimed in an accident. To lacerate is to inflict severe cuts and tears on the flesh or skin: to lacerate an arm. To mangle is to chop undiscriminatingly or to crush or rend by blows or pressure, as if by machinery: bodies mangled in a train wreck. To mutilate is to injure the completeness or beauty of a body, esp. by cutting off an important member: to mutilate a statue, a tree, a person. 2. injure, disable, deface, mar.” In my view that is what is being proposed by the found documents.
So my question again is., “What do we call torture when it mains, lacerates, mangles or mutilates its subject”? It certainly cannot be considered merely “torment”, can it? And yet that’s what the sloppy and over-reaching politicalization of certain English language terms has seemed to have brought about.
As ever, I await correction and rebuke. Cheers
May 26, 2007 at 4:10 am |
Congratulations on moving over to WordPress, 49er! It seems that you’re always interested in exploring a new option.
The biggest challenge I found was in getting familiar with the menu (dashboard, write, manage, comments, etc.). I still struggle to remember where things are located sometimes, although it’s organized in a logical enough way.
The biggest inconvenience is that blogger will never supply your wordpress ID automatically — you’ve got to enter it every time. Given that most of the blogs I read are still on blogger, it’s a real nuisance.
As for your post &mash;
The world is apparently no longer interested in hearing about “torture”, probably because we dirty rotten Yanks are hands down the acknowledged leaders at “torturing” large quantities of prisoners taken in warfare.
I, for one, am under no illusions that the USA is the worst offender in this respect. I regret that my blog may leave that impression. I know there are some left-wing extremists who make statements to that effect: that the USA is the worst human rights offender in the world, etc.
It’s balderdash! I’m sure most people are aware of the atrocities committed by the Islamo-terrorists: using children to commit suicide bombings, beheading American journalists, etc. The story you mention here is more evidence of the inhuman barbarism of those folks.
But the USA is supposed to stand for a higher standard. Not merely a higher standard than the one employed by the inhuman Islamo-terrorists: the USA is supposed to exhibit exemplary conduct by any measure.
There’s a web definition of torture here, starting with:
“n 1: extreme mental distress [syn: anguish, torment]
2: unbearable physical pain [syn: torment].”
Andrew Sullivan provides a legal definition from the USA’s own lawbooks — 18 U.S. Code §2340. It begins:
“As used in this chapter— (1) ‘torture’ means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) ’severe mental pain or suffering’ means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from— (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;”.
Note that even the threat of severe physical pain or suffering qualifies as torture under this definition.
Compare the above definitions to the practices euphemized as “enhanced interrogation techniques”: waterboarding, induced hypothermia, even something as mundane as threatening to let vicious dogs attack a blindfolded detainee.
As Sullivan remarks, “It is not an opinion that ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ are torture. It is a legal fact.” I have no desire to “rebuke” you, 49er. But pointing to the other guy’s barbarity as a way of lowering the standard of what constitutes “torture” — I can’t accept that rationalization.
In sum, I agree that the other guys are worse — far, far worse. I haven’t forgotten who are my friends, and I sure know that the Islamo-terrorists are my enemy. But it doesn’t excuse Republican Party support of “enhanced interrogation”, or make that euphemism anything less than dishonest.
The other great issue is habeas corpus. Here, again, the USA historically upheld a higher standard:
Go back and look at Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address: he says very clearly that habeas is one of the basic premises of our entire system of government; that it’s a fundamental right that shores up all the others. Elsewhere he identifies habeas as one of the “four pillars” of our constitutional system.
But still Bush defends Gonzales. Honestly, 49er, the Republican response to 9/11 constitutes a threat to the core values of Western civilization. The standard isn’t established by the Islamo-terrorists. It’s established by the American Constitution, American law, and the USA’s founding fathers.
May 26, 2007 at 4:18 am |
I forgot to provide a link to Sullivan’s blog re the legal definition of torture.