Torture?

Let's think for a moment about the "torture" listed in the FBI memo that Senator Durbin used as the launching pad for his slander of the United States.

Let's forget for a moment the definition of "Torture" that anyone in the entire third world would recognize; fingernails pulled out, cigarettes stubbed out in the face, anal rape (hey, that's in American prisons!), hands hammered flat, beatings and tieing into unnatural positions, that sort of thing. What does the memo refer to?

• Inmates being chained, hand and foot. Ah. Like American prisoners frequently are?
• Temperature extremes: Not like Joseph Mengele used, mind you - the troops allegedly inflicted discomfort on the inmates. If that's "torture", then so is the American interrogation practice of feeding an interviewee coffee and then refusing to allow them to the bathroom. You wanna take that on, perpetually indignant ones?
• Forced to urinate and defecate: You mean the same inmates that threw rine and feces at our guards for sport got some on themselves? And by the way, there are many explanations for this besides "torture"; illness, desire to be obstinate, mental illness. We've seen no reason to rule any of them out.
• Torn out hair. Again, no evidence whatsoever this had to do with "torture"; it's at least equally likely that there is stress, mental illness or some other non-malicious cause. We don't know, and by that I mean "you don't know either" .

There is no way, from what we know so far, to assume that "torture" had anything to do with what the FBI agent saw.

Indeed, when you look at...:

• ...all the other "surprise documents" the left has trotted out that have fallen flat - the TANG and now Downing Street memos jump immediately to mind
• ...the post-Watergate tendency of the mainstream media to look for the big scoop first and ask questions later, and
• ...the derangement that their hatred of George W. Bush has caused the left

...perhaps from now on when Democrats and the media bring "documents" trying to incriminate the administration, the war effort or the media, it's best to assume they're either frauds or out of context until proven otherwise.

Posted by Mitch at June 23, 2005 06:50 AM | TrackBack