Definition of torture:

Let us get to the meat of the real arguement over what is and what is not torture!

I think just about any reasonable person understands what torture is. The problem is we have unscrupulous people who will twist and turn anything if it serves their political agenda, even if they don't actually believe their own bullshit.

I am looking for someone, anyone from the left to tell me what they consider anything we as a nation has done that could be considered torture.

How about Water Boarding?

I think think that's on the edge, it makes you feel like you are drowning {I Know this because part of what I went through was similar to this, for resisting it} but causes no damage to the person. it's mind game thing.

How about sailor taps? My brother's used to do that to me ALL the time.

Them punks!

How about abu ghraib? How about hanging a suspect by their hands in handcuffs so long they have to have their hands amputated? I believe that waterboarding is torture. I think our country should be better than this. I think we should take the high road and treat our prisoners in the same way we would want our soldiers to be treated if they were captured.

that was despicable behavior but none of it reached torture. humiliation yes, torture no.



We have done this? or just more unfounded rumors?

you mean sitting on your chest pining your arms and tapping your chest over and over? my brother did this too, the fracker!

Yep that's the one.

If you define torture as causing irreparable damage, playing music at 90 dB would qualify; extended exposure to 85 dB or more is baaad for the ears. At least that's what I had in my mind and a quick look around the net seems to validate that.

Not saying you haven't got a point though, just careful with my ears

Even extremely uncomfortable stuff is just that: uncomfortable. Probably very annoying. That thing with the music always makes me think of having to listen to all day long.. Not a very pleasant thought

danny

"She also appeared in many of the photos, perhaps most notoriously posing, with a wide smile and a thumbs up, next to the body of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi who died while under CIA interrogation.

A 10-minute clip detailed the circumstances leading up to that photo. The prisoner expired from asphyxiation after CIA interrogators suspended him by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back."

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Revisiting_Abu_Ghraib/10256.html
I guess we humiliated this guy to death.
The story about the suspect (later apologized to and released) having to have his hands amputated was told by a soldier in the movie "The Ground Truth".
"The Afghan journalist was rendered unconscious by a taser and taken to a US base where the officers in charge of interrogating him, forced him to watch all the reports he had made for Press TV, while “shocking him on an electric chair and beating him on the head”.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=26279§ionid=351020101
"FACT: The International Committee of the Red Cross has reportedly issued a report calling the C.I.A. techniques tantamount to torture. “Congressional and other Washington sources familiar with the report said that it harshly criticized the C.I.A.’s practices. One of the sources said that the Red Cross described the agency’s detention and interrogation methods as tantamount to torture, and declared that American officials responsible for the abusive treatment could have committed serious crimes. The source said the report warned that these officials may have committed “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions, and may have violated the U.S. Torture Act, which Congress passed in 1994. The conclusions of the Red Cross, which is known for its credibility and caution, could have potentially devastating legal ramifications.” (“The Black Sites, A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program,” Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, 8/13/07)"
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/blog/torture/2007/10/fact-check-president-bush-on-torture.html#

yep unpleasant as hell, but again not torture.

The article you present as evidence is very very vague, again when anyone behaves badly in our military they get punished, you cannot take the actions of 3 dozen people and somehow twist it to make it seem like that is the national policy of America. This is what pisses me off to take the actions of a very very few and paint the entire country with that paint brush, something the left does over and over again. There were hundreds of articles about abu ghraib and less than a dozen about nick berg who was beheaded on television. This is what the left does, pound on anything that makes America look bad and lets slid what is done to us.

Water boarding could be mental torture...but I doubt it would leave any lasting effects...so I suppose you could go either way.

~Zoo