Text 23091, 76 rader
Skriven 2006-09-30 12:15:30 av EARL CROASMUN (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av Bob Sakowski
Ärende: Common Article 3
========================
-> Can we at least agree that "waterboarding" is torture? Given it
-> was one of the most heinous techniques used by the Pol Pot and
-> the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia, are we now saying that America is
-> right to emulate Pol Pot's regime of criminals?

Good gosh, Bob!  It is a nice, peaceful Saturday morning, and I am
reading more fido posts than I usually do.  Most days I just pick out an
occasional thread or post that looks like it might be interesting, since
a lot of it is just predictable recitation of party-lines.  Your above
comment is one good example of why I usually skip over your posts
regardless of whether I would be inclined to agree or disagree with you.

In this instance, you want to denounce waterboarding, so to make your
position look better you brand it as "ONE OF THE MOST HEINOUS
TECHNIQUES" of Pol Pot.  I feel sure that you are not ignorant enough to
actually believe that.  But when you say things like that, it doedsn't
provide much opportunity for serious discussion.

An example, from the archives of a Cambodian prison:

"1. In the morning of 18.7.77 1 decided to employ torture. I told the
prisoner that I was doing this because I had not grasped the weak points
of what he had said, and my pressure had not had any results. This was
my stance. I watched his morale fall when I administered torture, but he
had no reaction. When questioning began, it was still the same. As for
his health, he ate some gruel, but he was not able to sleep. The doctor
looked after him.

2. On the morning of 20.7.77 I beat him again. This time his reaction
was to say that he was not a traitor but that the people who had accused
him were the traitors. His health was still weak, but was not a serious
problem.

3. In the afternoon and evening of 21.7.77 I pressured him again, using
electric cord and shit. On this occasion he insulted the person who was
beating him: "You people who are beating me will kill me", he said. He
was given 2-3 spoonsful of shit to eat, and after that he was able to
answer questions about the contemptible Hing, Chau, Sac, Va, etc.

4. That night I beat him with electric cord again.

At present he is a little weak. The doctor has seen him."

Another example, in the words of one of the victims of Cambodian
torture:

"The interrogator tied an electric wire around my handcuffs and
connected the other end to my trousers with a safety pin. Then he sat
down again.

"Now do you remember? Who collaborated with you to betray [the
Organization]?" he asked. I couldn't think of anything to say. He
connected the wire to the electric power, plugged it in and shocked me.
I passed out. I don't know how many times he shocked me, but when I came
to, I could hear a distant voice asking over and over who my connection
was. I couldn't get any words out. They shocked me so severely that I
collapsed on the floor, my shirt completely drenched with sweat... To
this day I don't understand why they arrested me."

http://www.history.neu.edu/fac/burds/dc.html

That is torture, just as various other practices that they used.  Based
on the descriptions I have seen, waterboarding is also torture at least
in its more extreme forms where the prisoner actually feels the early
stages of drowning.  But to suggest that it was the worst thing Pol Pot
did is just absurd.  

Hearkening back to a long-ago thread that just faded away, playing loud
music in the next room is not torture.  Waking them in the middle of the
night is not torture.  Keeping their cell lighted (or dark) around the
clock is not torture.  So, specifically, what torture are you talking
about?  By what definition of torture?


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