4 ms·

Arguably Manning did face a period of torture.

Aelinsaar 10y ago
By any reasonable definition of torture, definitely. Certainly if a foreign government did what we did to Manning, to an American hostage, we'd call it torture. The problems with recognizing torture today though, have gotten harder, not easier. It's fundamentally harder to make people understand torture that utilizes "soft" methods (as defined by Darius Rejali) such as electrotorture, solitary confinement, various forms of drowning/suffocation, drugs, etc... compared to torture that leaves unambiguous physical scars.
- Shivetya 10y ago
  when that line keeps moving its easy to lay claim. from your definition its pretty much anything someone wants to take offense at. which in turn pretty much causes a lot of people to tune the issue out. Manning is fine, its the people we don't know about that we cannot be sure of.
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    Not surprisingly, your attempt at mind-reading wasn't a success.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > The problems with recognizing torture today though, have gotten harder, not easier. I don't think it is all that hard.
  - csydas 10y ago
    I think the post was referring to it in a legal sense, not a lay person's sense. I'm making an assumption here, but I'd say by most common definitions, quite a few common penal actions are likely torture. However, the law, and specifically the military and government, have very specific idea of what constitutes torture and what doesn't, and they're very good at spinning public perception to their side. Remember the public facing debate in the US whether or not waterboarding was torture? You had hundreds of pundits and news outlets weighing in on the matter and making a declaration, and public polls would be split. Of course, the few pundits that put their money where their mouth is and actually underwent waterboarding did an immediate 180 in virtually every circumstance. But it also goes a bit beyond definitions of torture and instead is a problem of jingoism. One need not look too deeply online to see what some American citizens feel is the appropriate response to muslims, to black people, to virtually anyone from the middle east, and so on. When you have a public that, superficially or not, is okay with thinking in terms of "waste the fucking [racial epithet]s", it's really easy to bend and flex the definition of torture in your country, as the US has done so quite a few times.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      bad stuff done to people we like = torture bad stuff done to people we hate <> torture
      - Aelinsaar 10y ago
        It's also about bad stuff we can imagine being torture, vs. bad stuff that is hard to empathize with, unless you have some background in it. The concept of stress positions only really becomes horrifying if you've ever been forced, or forced yourself, to try and hold one. By the same token, what is the subjective experience of being hooded, while someone uses an OTC "stun" electroshock weapon to jolt your genitals, face, and anus? Some things are easy to imagine, in the place of another; getting shocked in the taint is an easy thing to be horrified by. The more pernicious and subtle effects of sleep deprivation, loss of a sense of time and self control, isolation, fear, and of course the total loss of self determination and freedom are hard for a lot of people to grasp. You deal with people who lack imagination or empathy, or people who imagine themselves as being far tougher than they are. You have people who think that anything survivable, that doesn't maim, and doesn't leave someone a gibbering wreck, can't be torture. It's always easier to get through to people with scars from a whip, or lost limbs, than it is with a complicated story of months spent in captivity. If you're like many torture victims, most of what you'll be able to describe is the inside of a hood, or the inside of a small, unpleasant cell.
mirimir 10y ago
Manning wasn't lucky enough :( Snowden barely made it to Russia. If they had caught him, he would probably have ended up at a black site. Never to be heard from again. That could still happen, if Russia gives him up.

By any reasonable definition of torture, definitely. Certainly if a foreign government did what we did to Manning, to an American hostage, we'd call it torture. The problems with recognizing torture today though, have gotten harder, not easier. It's fundamentally harder to make people understand torture that utilizes "soft" methods (as defined by Darius Rejali) such as electrotorture, solitary confinement, various forms of drowning/suffocation, drugs, etc... compared to torture that leaves unambiguous physical scars.

Shivetya 10y ago
when that line keeps moving its easy to lay claim. from your definition its pretty much anything someone wants to take offense at. which in turn pretty much causes a lot of people to tune the issue out. Manning is fine, its the people we don't know about that we cannot be sure of.
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  Not surprisingly, your attempt at mind-reading wasn't a success.
jacquesm 10y ago
> The problems with recognizing torture today though, have gotten harder, not easier. I don't think it is all that hard.
- csydas 10y ago
  I think the post was referring to it in a legal sense, not a lay person's sense. I'm making an assumption here, but I'd say by most common definitions, quite a few common penal actions are likely torture. However, the law, and specifically the military and government, have very specific idea of what constitutes torture and what doesn't, and they're very good at spinning public perception to their side. Remember the public facing debate in the US whether or not waterboarding was torture? You had hundreds of pundits and news outlets weighing in on the matter and making a declaration, and public polls would be split. Of course, the few pundits that put their money where their mouth is and actually underwent waterboarding did an immediate 180 in virtually every circumstance. But it also goes a bit beyond definitions of torture and instead is a problem of jingoism. One need not look too deeply online to see what some American citizens feel is the appropriate response to muslims, to black people, to virtually anyone from the middle east, and so on. When you have a public that, superficially or not, is okay with thinking in terms of "waste the fucking [racial epithet]s", it's really easy to bend and flex the definition of torture in your country, as the US has done so quite a few times.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    bad stuff done to people we like = torture bad stuff done to people we hate <> torture
    - Aelinsaar 10y ago
      It's also about bad stuff we can imagine being torture, vs. bad stuff that is hard to empathize with, unless you have some background in it. The concept of stress positions only really becomes horrifying if you've ever been forced, or forced yourself, to try and hold one. By the same token, what is the subjective experience of being hooded, while someone uses an OTC "stun" electroshock weapon to jolt your genitals, face, and anus? Some things are easy to imagine, in the place of another; getting shocked in the taint is an easy thing to be horrified by. The more pernicious and subtle effects of sleep deprivation, loss of a sense of time and self control, isolation, fear, and of course the total loss of self determination and freedom are hard for a lot of people to grasp. You deal with people who lack imagination or empathy, or people who imagine themselves as being far tougher than they are. You have people who think that anything survivable, that doesn't maim, and doesn't leave someone a gibbering wreck, can't be torture. It's always easier to get through to people with scars from a whip, or lost limbs, than it is with a complicated story of months spent in captivity. If you're like many torture victims, most of what you'll be able to describe is the inside of a hood, or the inside of a small, unpleasant cell.

mirimir 10y ago

Manning wasn't lucky enough :( Snowden barely made it to Russia. If they had caught him, he would probably have ended up at a black site. Never to be heard from again. That could still happen, if Russia gives him up.