Torture: I would define it as cruel and unusual punishment. How you define that is something else again. In Iraq I used to see the intel guys incarcerating suspects in big metal cargo containers, which get very hot with it being the desert and all. Then some poor schmuck had to walk around the thing for hours on end dragging a metal tube along the corrugated edges of the container to make noise. The idea was to deprive the prisoner of sleep. They'd haul him out at random intervals to question him or just leave him sitting on a stool until he started to fall asleep again, then bust in and put him back in the box. The Soviets employed that same technique (sleep deprivation) at the Lubyanka, albeit in a different manner and setting.
Is that torture? To some degree, yes. Sleep deprivation sucks, I'd know. I spent 3 days and nights without sleep when I went through the Crucible in boot camp, and walked about a hundred miles in full kit and did O-courses and all kinds of other assorted BS while I was at it. But they didn't call it torture, they called it training. I figure if it's good enough for US military recruits it's good enough for terror suspects who are not US citizens and who are non-uniformed combatants.
Black's Law Dictionary defines torture as " the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental." Now we just need to define "severe" "pain" and "suffering". Surprise surprise, there is no concrete definition for any of those terms in the legal sense. Even within the normal US legal system, the standards for each vary widely. Sometimes people get shot or stabbed and it doesn't constitute "torture". Other times people are annoyed by the sound of children playing and it does. It all depends on the case made for each term and the interpretation of the judge and/or jury.
To me, torture would be the intentional infliction of permanent, demonstrable, physical harm in a controlled environment against a defenseless party for whatever purpose. That's a pretty narrow definition, but it is a lot more functional than any definition that includes mental harm, which is extremely difficult to quantify. There are certainly forms of torture that can inflict permanent mental harm, but they are so varied and indefineable as to be rendered meaningless.
Is prison torture?
In my definition; no. Spending time in prison probably does cause mental harm, and it is certainly an infliction of harm in a controlled environment for a purpose, but considering it as torture is impractical. The Geneva convention does not ban POW camps, and every nation on the planet has some kind of prison.
Prison is supposed to serve both as a punishment and as a way to nullify any potential harm criminals can do. IMO, if you've violated another person's rights, whether it be through theft or murder or rape or what have you, you forfeit your own rights. When it comes to prison, the degree of forfeiture of rights that is appropriate is the real question, and it is just as nebulous as the definition of mental harm. Again, the power resides in the courts, and again, non-unifromed combatants have no protection under either the US justice system or the Geneva convention, though there are exceptions made for militias.
Is water torture torture or is it just 'mild' torture?
I'd be hesitant to classify it as "torture". To be sure, waterboarding is very uncomfortable and it can be deadly if performed incorrectly or if an accident occurs, but so is swim qual. Which is more cruel, to simulate drowning without the intent to drown or to throw a recruit off a 20-ft diving board in full gear whether he knows how to swim or not, and then rely on resuce divers to save him if he sinks?
I put waterboarding in the same class as sleep-deprivation, but I would never advocate it. It seems a rather crude means of extracting information. You'd think intel would come up with something more clever than that.
Is the ban working?
I wouldn't know. The last guy I knew who was in intel left the service earlier this year, and I never really asked him much about it after OIF III.
My guess is that it is working, as brass tend to be very sensitive about these things. If Washington says no, they won't do it, no matter what the ramifications if ROE-related deaths and injuries are any indication.
How does the public know if torture is being used or not?
In my experience? The media. They're almost as thick as the flies in Al-Anbar (or at least they were when I was there) and I had to drive correspondents to the Fallujah detention center on several occasions. I don't know if they ever got in there. They didn't let
me in, and I was absolutley forbidden to talk to any journalists.
The military generally tries to keep a tight rein on what info it gives the press, same as any firm. They prefer to handle journalists through officers and PR guys. Given the military's success performing even peacetime tasks, my guess is that they have been, and will continue to be, less than successful.
How do we know what forms of torture have been used by the US?
I have no up-to-date information on that subject, but I'm sure that any torture used is fairly mild. The stuff they did at Guantanamo was child's play, and nobody was concerned about torture when they did
that. Stacked naked in a pyramid? Please. Try being crammed into a single toilet stall with 40 other naked recruits. Believe it or not, they will fit.
I can only draw conclusions from how I have seen other PR matters handled. When the media started reporting on US troops using excessive force on Iraqi civilians way back in '05, we recieved a corresponding increase in ridiculous ROEs; i.e. "you can't shoot at anyone who isn't firing at you", "no HMGs", "no AP rounds", "no grenades, even flash-bangs", "every target must have confirmed Positive Identification".... and all that BS. Field-Grade Officers' careers depend upon good public image and shiny records. They take every pain to make sure that they do not do anything to sabatoge their careers. Well, some aren't like that, but I've never met one.
and other nations?
Hell if I know. Units from other nations are usually under a totally different command structure in a totally seperate base and we were never allowed to even communicate with their higher-ups. They may have had a different way of doing things, but I don't know what it was.
All of this is just my perspective from the ground, but I hope at least some of it can help, OTH.
