Tuesday, February 14, 2006
UN Redefines Torture
Although I'm not as bad as the Birchers, I think the UN has reached the same absolute irrelevance the League of Nations had in October, 1939. I'm a little less than impressed by the report about to be issued by the UN on Guantanamo Bay internment camp. It is based on 18 months of interviews of former prisoners and their families, but the UN team investigating neglected to visit the camp itself (because they would not have been allowed to interview the current prisoners, the UN team rationalized). The report apparently documents torture of people there and recommends that the camp be shut down.
The report suggests some of the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay meets the definition of torture under the UN Convention Against Torture.
This includes the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes and the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques such as prolonged solitary confinement and exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light.
Feeding through nasal tubes in order to save the life of a hunger striker is torture? I'd call that humanitarian.
Prolonged solitary confinement is torture? Since when? It's a form of punishment for sure, but torture? Not a chance.
Extreme temperatures, noise and light is torture? I go through worse at the Church on industrial night (just kidding, I'm too old to go clubbing).
The trouble with redefining torture to include mere inconvenience is that it dilutes the charge of torture to insignifigance (which is fitting I guess, given the current insignificence of the UN). For the same reason, we shouldn't compare slight, temporary deprivation to what the survivors of NAZI concentration camps and the Soviet Gulags endured.
Although the report should please Andrew Sullivan.
The report suggests some of the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay meets the definition of torture under the UN Convention Against Torture.
This includes the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes and the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques such as prolonged solitary confinement and exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light.
Feeding through nasal tubes in order to save the life of a hunger striker is torture? I'd call that humanitarian.
Prolonged solitary confinement is torture? Since when? It's a form of punishment for sure, but torture? Not a chance.
Extreme temperatures, noise and light is torture? I go through worse at the Church on industrial night (just kidding, I'm too old to go clubbing).
The trouble with redefining torture to include mere inconvenience is that it dilutes the charge of torture to insignifigance (which is fitting I guess, given the current insignificence of the UN). For the same reason, we shouldn't compare slight, temporary deprivation to what the survivors of NAZI concentration camps and the Soviet Gulags endured.
Although the report should please Andrew Sullivan.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 8:05 AM 
