"DSK" wrote
Vito wrote:
There is good reason to think we stopped it long ago.

Stopped what, handing over prisoners for turture by other countries, or
torturing them ourselves?

I'd be interested in hearing your reasons to think either has stopped.

I don't think we ever handed anyone over for the *purpose* of having them
tortured. In the case mentioned I thing some INS idiot looked at his
citizenship and saw "Syria/Canada" and said "Doh, send him to Syria".

I can't say that beatings have entirely stopped - that no young Marine will
ever knock the crap out of a prisoner who insults him - but it is not our
policy or even common place. See below:

... Witness our response
to the Abu Grabbe (sp?) scandal. It is NOT our policy to physically
torture
prisoners. It happens but is generally punished.


Then why were those who set the policy not punished?

What policy? The worst I've heard is that Rummy said "I stand at my desk
12-16 hours/day. It is not torture to have a prisoner do likewise." I tend
to agree. To me "torture" inflicts real pain but remember I think setting
one's ass on fire is a great joke.

The Abu Ghraib (or however you wanna spell it) scandal is just the tip
of the iceberg. Mistreatment of prisoners is on the rise in the U.S., by
the military and by police. It is partially due to the eroding of
professional & moral standards, and it's also directly due to corrosive
& amoral leadership.

I'm not sure it is any worse or simple better reported. If anything, I
suspect that true torture - inflicting pain - is less common in intel
circles because it seldom yields truth. Police are a different story. They
want confessions not truth. OTOH I agree on the causes you cite.

For example, Sec'y of Defense Donald Rumsfeld issued a series of
memoes... at least one of which has been tracked directly back to him...
stating that he wanted to replace the U.S. policy of treating prisoners
scrupulously within boundaries, to "pushing the envelope" and treating
prisoners in ways that may be open to interpretation.

In other words, he issued orders for the troops to become bad guys who
torture prisoners. And then he puts them on trial.

Nice.

Sad, but completely normal for politicians.