Gitmo

I had wonderful and sparkling plans to post some more philosophy, but this torture crap just keeps floating back up to the surface. So after gathering all the facts, this is what I have come up with:

The Geneva Conventions reference the Strasbourg Court, specifically in regards to it's torture clause. It states that torture is defined as severe pain or suffering, which means there exist levels of pain and suffering which are not severe enough to be called torture -- such as sensory deprivation. (this is what the current reports of 'torture' refer to)

The five sensory deprivation techniques:

In 1978 in the European Court of Human Rights trial "Ireland v. the United Kingdom" the facts were not in dispute and the court published the following in their judgment:

These methods, sometimes termed "disorientation" or "sensory deprivation" techniques, were not used in any cases other than the fourteen so indicated above. It emerges from the Commission's establishment of the facts that the techniques consisted of:

(a) wall-standing: forcing the detainees to remain for periods of some hours in a "stress position", described by those who underwent it as being "spreadeagled against the wall, with their fingers put high above the head against the wall, the legs spread apart and the feet back, causing them to stand on their toes with the weight of the body mainly on the fingers";

(b) hooding: putting a black or navy colored bag over the detainees' heads and, at least initially, keeping it there all the time except during interrogation;

(c) subjection to noise: pending their interrogations, holding the detainees in a room where there was a continuous loud and hissing noise;

(d) deprivation of sleep: pending their interrogations, depriving the detainees of sleep;

(e) deprivation of food and drink: subjecting the detainees to a reduced diet during their stay at the center and pending interrogations.

It referred to the above as "the five techniques" and ruled:

167. ... Although the five techniques, as applied in combination, undoubtedly amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, although their object was the extraction of confessions, the naming of others and/or information and although they were used systematically, they did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture as so understood.

These accusations that the United States tortures its prisoners does nothing but damage our image and place the troops in greater harm. The techniques currently being used ARE in accordance with the Geneva conventions, the Strasbourg Court, and the European Court of Human Rights!