Stanford CIS

It's Only Torture When Someone Else Does It

By Stanford Center for Internet and Society on

Human Rights Watch helpfully reviews the latest State Department report on human rights practices around the world and compiles an illustrative list of practices we have previously condemned as torture.  It happens that many of these are the same practices we ourselves have undertaken in our ineptly-waged war on terror.  Examples:

Binding/Shackling  of Limbs
China, Eritrea, Israel, Pakistan

Blindfolding
Egypt, Israel, Turkey

Branding
Iraq

Burning
Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Turkey

Denial of  Food/Water
Burma, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan , Tunisia, Turkey, Zimbabwe

Dog  Attacks
Libya

...

It's shocking to consider that we continued some of the practices when Abu Ghraib was under previous management.  (Yes, yes, I realize that we are orders of magnitude better than the previous management, but that's a ludicrous standard for judging our own behavior.)

It must be remembered at all times that it seems very likely that our torture included homicide in a number of cases.

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