Waterboarding, Just water boarding

[tequila]

So ... do you think torture exists at all? Or just that the United States cannot be guilty of it? Or that we are guilty of it all the time, since we incarcerate people, and we should just go ahead and make it policy, like Syria?

[Polarbear1605]

So ... do you think torture exists at all? Or just that the United States cannot be guilty of it? Or that we are guilty of it all the time, since we incarcerate people, and we should just go ahead and make it policy, like Syria?

Based on your first two questions I feel you are missing the point. The word torture now automatically has it own political dogma that is usually expressed as “we (the US) have no tolerance for torture”. The definition, however, is wide open and vague for both the Rule of Law and the Laws of War. In addition, the ROL and the LOW are very different things. “Does torture exist?” Sure it exists! Ask any Viet Nam US POW. We could probably say the same about Iraq and Afghanistan War if the bad guys took US soldiers and Marines as prisoners but they don’t. Instead, they execute them and desecrate their bodies and not necessarily in that order. Just so you understand the difference between the ROL and the LOW, our surviving POWs cannot sue North Viet Nam under our Constitution because it has no jurisdiction in Viet Nam. If they try to go the Laws of War route they bang into a definition that can be interpreted anyway the bad guys want and therefore the bad guys get away with torture.

Politicians, theirs and now ours, change the definition not for the good of mankind but they change it for political advantage. The 9/11 National Command Authority changed the definition for a strategic advantage in the war on terrorism; the next administration changed it for their own political advantage and gain. Another way to say that is I have problems with definition manipulation that only applies to our side and does not work against our enemies.

You are asking the right questions but you are focused on the word torture defined by political sound bits.