Reply #12: Ashcroft adds clarity to the torture debate

[Kibitzer 2006]

OK, I think we're making progress. We thought that John Yoo had resolved the issue in his infamous memo (you can start here and work back):

...limited the definition of torture to physical pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." It was the administration's so-called "golden shield" which permitted the CIA to use its most aggressive interrogation techniques, such as water boarding.

Now my first response was that surely being forced to inhale water induces physical pain equivalent to the pain accompanying organ failure (lungs) and impairment of bodily function (breathing). I see now that I was wrong. The victim is not "forced" to inhale water, but is merely placed in a condition under which his instinctive bodily functions are sure to eventually cause him to inhale water. That makes all the difference.

In any event, we must remember that John Yoo was a lowly Assistant Attorney General, but Ashcroft was the Attorney General, and we should therefore defer to his opinion. We have known for some time that the simple, clear, bright-line definition of "torture" is "that which we do not do". Ashcroft has now supplied two examples of what is torture (techniques that we might have applied to Abu Zubaydah and his colleagues, but, due our high moral principles, chose not to):

• Taking him to a high school dance, where he might have had to listen to loud music
  
• Putting him on the Daily Show to be interviewed by Jon Stewart

I'll add a few more techniques which would clearly constitute "torture" under the "that which we do not do" standard:

• According him his basic human rights under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions
  
• According him the rights guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
  
• According him the basic rights we inherited from British Common Law (the presumption of innocence, the right to confront one's accusers, ...)
  
• Taking him to Baskin Robin's for ice cream
  
• ...
  All of these techniques would have been torture, since they are "that which we do not do". Thank you, John Ashcroft, for clarifying that.
  
  --Kibitzer