A reader writes:
I assume you’ll receive dozens of emails pointing out a major error in your post “Did The Obama Administration Torture?“, but I have to chime in too. I was especially surprised at your comment: “The problem here is that there is no indication that this inhumane treatment was designed to procure a confession or admission of some kind – and that’s key to defining it as torture.” Your definition doesn’t fit the dictionary or UN definition of torture. The UN Convention Against Torture defines torture as:
any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.
This is one of the stricter definitions of torture, yet if the claims about Guantanamo in that article are true, the US is certainly still torturing prisoners under President Obama. Your personal definition of torture doesn’t comport with international law and would even go so far as to preclude a lot of what happened in Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers from being called torture, since often it was to intimidate others or punish perceived enemies, not to get specific pieces of information.
First up, I find force-feeding barbaric and horrifying. What we’re talking here is legal definitions of torture. The reason I brought up the purpose of it – to get information – was because it gets at the core question of intentionality. The reason force-feeding is problematic as torture is because the stated intention is to keep the prisoner alive, not to inflict pain and suffering. It may entail pain or suffering, but the intent is what counts. Many hospital patients are fed with NG tubes, even children. No one would describe that as torture, if medically necessary. Another reader:
The US definition of torture is even more expansive than the UN’s:
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;There’s no requirement at all that it be for a purpose.
Friedersdorf also pushes back:
If Dick Cheney walked into a prison cell at Guantanamo Bay and crushed the testicles of an inmate, not to elicit information but because John Yoo said it might be okay and he wanted to test the limits of executive power, Sullivan would not hesitate to call that act torture.
Why does he hesitate here? I have a theory.
President Obama is a very likable individual. He is handsome, eloquent, and charismatic. He seems to be a good husband and father. He exudes reasonableness in many of his speeches, and at his best, their substance is impressive. He has advanced important causes dear to me and to Sullivan, like gay equality. There is no reason to doubt that Obama believes his domestic agenda is salutary. There are also credible allegations that the U.S. government has tortured on his watch. I can see how this would be especially discomfiting to someone like Sullivan, who has written so eloquently in support of Obama and against torture. Sullivan’s idea of a torturing president and his idea of Obama are at odds.
Conor’s theory is silly. Feeding a prisoner to prevent his death from starvation is not the same thing as crushing an inmate’s testicles. And if you cannot see that distinction, you’re being blinded by otherwise admirable righteousness.
Previous Dish on force-feeding here.
(Photo of a force-feeding chair used at Gitmo taken by Sgt. Brian Godette, Army 138th Public Affairs Detachment)
The Dish 