 | | | Subject: Mainly for Americans...
Posted Mar 2, 2005 by Edward the Bonobo - Gone.
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 | | (Advance warnings: Please don't take any implications of reflex anti-Americanism from this).
There has been a lot of attention paid in Britain recently to the torture of detainees in Guantanamo, Bagram and elsewhere (eg Egypt and Syria to where the FBI and US military send their latest detainees to be tortured). Channel 4 (our commercial franchise with a government requirement to include quality programming) is currently running a week of programmes on it. There have also been several programmes on BBC radio, and the more reputable papers are full of it. The coverage really took off after the various British detainees were released without charge recently. Their stories were widely believed and confirmed much of what had already been said.
The thing is...we in the UK are now using the word 'torture' to describe the prisoners' treatment...and the starting assumption is that torture is wrong (for various reasons: it doesn't deliver useful information; it gives the enemy an excuse; it's just plain wrong).
Now - I haven't been following the US press and TV recently. Is the T-word in regular use over your way? Is there any kind of debate? (Other than amongst the irrelevant liberal elite).
Of course...we're not actually *doing* anything about it...
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| | | Subject: Mainly for Americans...
Posted Mar 2, 2005 by psychocandy- Community Editor, Moderator
This is a reply to this Posting
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 | | I, unfortunately, find little to read on this subject except for in the BBC news. Over here, on television and in the one paper I do get to read frequently, the torture of detainees that I've heard of is generally presented as justifiable. The mentality that seems most prevalent is that of "well, look what they've [sic] done to us".
That concept confuses me, because I thought one of the most important tenets of the American code of justice is not to use excessive force, or "cruel and unusual" punishment, etc. Which is what torture sounds like to me. We also have something called due process, which means that an accused person must be charged with a crime and arraigned on a timely basis, or else released. Why this applies on the domestic front and not internationally (although from what I've seen, it's not enforced much at home, either)is beyond me.
As for debate on the subject, I've not encountered any myself recently. I'm not in any way what I would call part of the liberal elite, but I am fairly liberal in the grand scheme of things, I guess, and am interested in getting as many of the FACTS on the matter as possible. I'll be following along with great interest.
Not that I can do anything to help, either. 
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